Bangladesh boosts security as ex-minister, lawmaker hanged for 1971 war crimes

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

Senior Jail Super of Dhaka Central Jail Jahangir Kabir told journalists that "The executions were carried out at 12:55 a.m. (local time)."

He made the official announcement in front of scores of journalist about half an hour after 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 in a jail in the capital Dhaka.

Brigadier General Syed Iftekhar Uddin, inspector general (prisons), said they walked the separate gallows together.

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, who met them at the jail in Dhaka for the last time before the executions, however claimed that they have not sought presidential mercy.

About two hours after executions, ambulances carrying bodies of Mujahid and Chowdhury left the jail for their ancestral homes escorted by huge law enforcers.

In light of the executions, Bangladeshi authorities have tightened security in capital Dhaka and elsewhere in the country.

Thousands of law enforcers and paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) personnel have been positioned outside key state institutions.

Checkpoints manned by explosives experts have been set up on many Dhaka streets.

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 and Chowdhury, who is a member of BNP's Standing Committee, the highest policy-making body of the party.

Bangladesh's war crimes tribunals found the leaders guilty of collaborating with Pakistani forces and committing war crimes, including mass killings.

This was 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.

After returning to power in January 2009, Prime Minister Hasina, the daughter of Bangladesh's independence hero Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, established the first tribunal in March 2010, almost 40 years after the 1971 fight for independence from Pakistan.

Both BNP and Jamaat have dismissed the court as a government " show trial" and said it is a domestic set-up without the oversight or involvement of the United Nations.

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.

Pro-liberationyouths' platform Gonojagoron Moncho and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ruling Bangladeshi Awami League party and its associate bodies burst into rejoice.

Jamaat calls strike for Monday. Endit