Dhaka: Bangladesh on Saturday executed Islamist leader Mohammad Kamaruzzaman for overseeing a massacre during the nation`s 1971 independence war.
He was hanged at 10:01 PM local time, jail officials were quoted by local media reports as saying.
He had refused to seek clemency from the country`s president.
Kamaruzzaman, the third most senior figure in the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was originally expected to be hanged in the early hours of Saturday morning, but the execution was finally completed ate in the evening.
Bangaldesh's junior home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said the authorities had decided Kamaruzzaman would not be granted any more time to seek mercy.
"No, he won`t be given anymore time," the minister told reporters.
The move to execute him comes after the country`s highest court rejected Kamaruzzaman`s final legal appeal on Monday, upholding the original death sentence handed down to him by a controversial domestic war crimes court in May 2013.
Kamaruzzaman was convicted of abduction, torture and mass murder including a slaughter in a remote northern hamlet that has since become known as the "Village of Widows".
The conviction confirmed allegations that Kamaruzzaman was one of the chief organisers of a pro-Pakistan militia that killed thousands of people.
The conflict led to the creation of an independent Bangladesh from what was then East Pakistan.
If the execution is carried out, Kamaruzzaman would become the second Islamist so far hanged for war crimes, though several others have been handed death sentences.
The UN on Wednesday urged Bangladesh against carrying out the sentence, saying his trial did not meet "fair international" standards.
(With PTI Inputs)
