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1st LD Writethru: Bangladesh hangs two opposition leaders for 1971 war crimes hours

Xinhua, November 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

Bangladesh on early Sunday executed two opposition leaders convicted of war crimes during the country's war of independence in 1971.

"The execution has been carried out," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told journalists.

He said that Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, secretary general of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party, and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, a leader of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), were hanged at 12:45 a.m. ( local time) in a jail in the capital Dhaka.

The hangings took place just hours after the country's President rejected their mercy pleas, removing the last legal option against their executions.

Family members of both Mujahid and Chowdhury met them at the jail in Dhaka for one last time hours before the executions.

A four-member Appellate Division bench of the Bangladesh Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, on Wednesday dismissed the review petitions of Mujahid , 67, also a cabinet member in the government of former prime minister Khaleda Zia in 2001-2006, and Chowdhury,66, who is a member of BNP's Standing Committee, the highest policy-making body of the party.

This is the first time that the country executed a member of the parliament who is the leader of the BNP headed by ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia, a rival of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Muhammad Kamaruzzaman, a Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party leader convicted of war crimes, was executed in April, the second execution for crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 war.

Another Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Molla, also convicted of war crimes, was executed on Dec. 12, 2013. Endit