Kamaruzzaman hanged.

Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s senior assistant secretary general Muhammad Kamaruzzaman was hanged on Saturday night at Dhaka Central Jail for the war crimes he had committed in 1971. ‘Kamaruzzman was hanged at 10:30pm on an executive order of the government. The Jamaat leader did not seek presidential clemency,’ said Forman Ali, senior jail super of Dhaka told the media reporters at the jail gate. The jail authorities executed the 62-year-old Kamaruzzaman, convicted of crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War, after the government ordered it to execute his death warrant. Jamaat, in protest at Kamaruzzaman’s hanging called a countrywide dawn-to-dusk hartal for Monday describing the execution as a ‘planned killing’. The execution came five days after the Appellate Division dismissed Kamaruzzaman’s review petition on April 6 and he refused to seek presidential clemency which two magistrates offered him at the condemned cell on Friday.

This was the second case of execution of any war crimes convict. Among the 18 convicts, 14 were sentenced to death, three to life in prison and the rest one to 90 years in prison. Among the convicts, two died while their appeals were pending with the Appellate Division for hearing along with eight other death row convicts and five convicts are in hiding. On November 3, 2014, three out of four judges of the apex court bench upheld the May 9, 2013 verdict of the ICT-2 that had handed death sentence to Kamaruzzaman finding him guilty of orchestrating and participating in atrocities at Sohagpur village, making it a ‘village of widows’ on July 25, 1971 when 120 people were killed and many women were raped. The Appellate Division bench released the full verdict on February 18 after one dissenting judge had reduced Kamaruzaman’s sentence to life term. The majority verdict echoed the trial court findings that Kamaruzzaman had formed the Al-Badr force in greater Mymensingh and assisted and participated in the mass killing of the male population of Sohagpur and raped the widows.

The verdict termed the crimes as ‘inhuman’ and ‘gruesome’. The dissenting judge said Kamaruzzaman was an Al-Badr member and did not have any advisory role or control over the Al-Badrs in contemplating and taking steps in the commission of ‘large scale massacre’ by raiding Sohagpur on July 25,1971 as the prosecution alleged. Defence lawyers in the review hearing had argued that Kamaruzzaman’s death sentence should be commuted to life term as he was given the capital punishment on the controversial evidence of three women, who in cross-examination in the tribunal said that they had come to know about Kamaruzzaman’s identity as an Al-Badr leader from their elders three or four months after the liberation.  The lawyers said it was not possible for Kamaruzzaman to lead the Al-Badr as he was 17 or 18 years old in 1971. In the review verdict the apex court said that there was no error in sentencing Kamaruzzaman. The verdict had said that the truth was that Bangabandhu had granted mercy to those collaborators only who had committed no criminal offence. He certainly did not insulate those who were accused of criminal offence during the liberation war. Twenty-four members of Kamaruzzman’s family last visited him in jail at around 4:15pm Saturday. Coming out of the jail after staying with Kamaruzzman for about an hour, his eldest son Hasan Iqbal said his father was ‘undaunted’ and in ‘good health’ and smilingly said them goodbye. About the last wishes of the Jamaat leader, Hasan Iqbal said that his father wanted ‘victory of Islamic movement’ in Bangladesh. Hasan branded the two magistrates and the home minister as ‘liars’ and claimed they had no talks with Kamaruzzaman in jail rather they had staged a ‘drama’ over presidential clemency for ‘political benefits’. On completion of all formalities after the execution, the body was sent to his village home in Sherpur for burial. said Formal Ali. At 11:40pm, an ambulance carrying Kamaruzzaman’s body and escorted by police and Rapid Action Battalion left the jail and drove to Sherpur for burial. One of the medical officers present at the gallows, said the body was kept hanging for 30 minutes. Kamaruzzaman was pinioned and hooded by six hangmen led by Raju. Munir Hossain, imam of the jail mosque, administered Kamaruzzaman his last rites about one hour before the execution.

Later the body was washed. Jail officials present at the time said Kamaruzzaman himself had walked onto the gallows straight from his cell. The gallows was covered with black canvas so that only people permitted could watch the hanging. The physician said that Kamaruzzaman was calm and composed and uttered a single sentence ‘pray for me’ when he was escorted onto the gallows. Additional inspector general of prisons Colonel Md Fazlul Kabir, deputy inspector general of prisons Golam Haider, Dhaka district deputy commissioner Tofazzal Hossain Miah, DMP deputy commissioner (detective branch) Sheikh Nazmul Alam, Rapid Action Battalion intelligence chief Abul Kalam Azad, Dhaka’s civil surgeon Abdul Malek Mridha, senior jail super Forman Ali, four deputy jailers, and executive magistrate Tanvir Ahmed were present during execution. On April 6, a four-member Appellate Division bench comprising the judges who had originally on November 3, 2014 upheld the May 9, 2013 verdict of ICT-2 awarding him death sentence, rejected Kamaruzzaman’s review petition.

On February 19 this year, the ICT-2 issued the warrant for Kamaruzzaman’s execution after receiving the copy of the Appellate Division’s full verdict that had upheld his death sentence handed down by the tribunal on May 9, 2013. The jail authorities suspended the warrant for Kamaruzzaman’s execution after he had filed the review petition on March 5. On April 6, the Appellate Division dismissed his review petition and the jail superintendent read out the review verdict to Kamaruzzaman.  On April 8 he wanted to consult his lawyers to decide whether he would seek presidential mercy. After meeting lawyers, he told them he would inform jail authorities about his decision after giving a thought to it. All were set to execute Kamaruzzaman on Friday night after he refused to seek presidential mercy that the two magistrates offered him earlier on the day but a decision was delayed. The Appellate Division by its majority verdict had commuted to life term Kamaruzzaman’s death sentence given by the ICT-2 for his involvement in the killing of HSC examinee Golam Mostafa and torturing one Abul Kashem in confinement at village Gridda-Narayanpur in Sherpur.

It had also acquitted Kamaruzzaman of the charge of abduction and killing of one Badiuzzaman at Nalitabai in Sherpur and the killing of six others in Mymensingh for which the ICT sentenced him to life in jail. The Appellate Division upheld the 12 years’ rigorous imprisonment Kamaruzzaman was awarded for torturing pro-liberation intellectual Syed Abdul Hannan, the then Principal of Sherpur College. On May 9, 2013, Kamaruzzaman was awarded death sentence by ICT-2 on two counts of war crimes charges. On June 6, 2014, Kamaruzzaman filed the appeal before the Appellate Division against the tribunal verdict. On September 17, 2013, the Appellate Division enhanced Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Molla’s punishment from life term to death sentence on a government appeal against the ICT verdict. Molla was executed on December 12, 2013 after the Appellate Division rejected his petition seeking a review of his capital punishment. The apex court, on September 17, 2014 commuted Delwar Hossain Sayedee’s capital punishment to sentence him until his death in prison.

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