‘Nizami’s death penalty execution after all legal procedure’

The death sentence of condemned war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami will be executed after maintaining all legal procedure, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said today.

The minister came up with the remark while talking to reporters at his residence in Dhaka this morning.

About Jamaat’s hartal, the minister said, “Law enforcers will stay on stern position on that day.”

Jamaat-e-Islami called a 24-hour countrywide hartal for Sunday protesting the Supreme Court order.

The Supreme Court yesterday dismissed the Jamaat-e-Islami chief's petition for reviewing its verdict that upheld his death penalty awarded by the International Crimes Tribunal-1 in October 2014.

Nizami was the president of Jamaat's student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha from 1966 to September 1971 and ex-officio chief of Al-Badr. He led the ruthless militia Al-Badr in the massacre of Bangalees including intellectuals and professionals during the 1971 Liberation War.

As per the precedents set in previous executions of war crimes convicts, it is expected that after the SC's dismissal of the petition, the court will release the full text of the verdict and send it to the tribunal.

The copies of the verdict will be sent to the jail authorities and the district magistrate in Dhaka. The jail authorities will then ask the condemned war criminal if he would seek presidential clemency within a "reasonable time".

If Nizami, now 73, seeks mercy, his plea would go to the president through the home ministry.

If he refrains from seeking clemency, the jail authorities would take preparations for his execution.