Senior Jamaat leader to be hanged after midnight: Official

Dhaka: Top fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Mollah, convicted of genocide and rape during Bangladesh`s 1971 liberation war, will be executed at midnight, officials said on Tuesday.

"War crimes convict Abdul Quader Mollah will be hanged by tonight," State Minister for Home Shamsul Hoque Tuku said. "All preparations to execute the Jamaat-e-Islami Assistant Secretary General have been completed." On Sunday, a special tribunal signed an execution order for 65-year-old Mollah, infamous as the "Butcher of Mirpur", a Dhaka suburb where he committed most of the atrocities during the war of independence. Prisons chief Main Uddin Khandaker said Mollah`s family was asked to meet him for the last time at Dhaka Central Jail by 8 pm this evening. "Yes, we have asked his family members to see him at the jail," a senior prison official told PTI. Reports said 23 of Mollah`s relatives met him in prison. Mollah, the fourth-highest Jamaat leader, is the first politician to be found guilty by the Supreme Court after it rejected an appeal to acquit him of all charges. Anticipating protests over the execution, senior government officials held a closed-door meeting at Bangladesh Secretariat with state ministers for law and home affairs. Tajul Islam, a counsel for Mollah, said: "We are in tension. We feel that it is not a good sign." Earlier today, Mollah told his lawyers during a meeting inside Dhaka Central Jail to file a review petition in the Supreme Court. They also discussed the issue of seeking presidential clemency. State Minister for Law Qamrul Islam said Mollah refused to seek mercy from the president despite being asked to do so. The war crimes tribunal sentenced Mollah to life imprisonment on February 5 for his atrocities during the Bangladesh`s liberation War. The Appellate Division revised the verdict on September 17 and raised it to death penalty. Based on the highest court`s verdict, the tribunal issued the death warrant for Mollah. Mollah was arrested on July 13, 2010, while the tribunal indicted him on May 28, 2012 on six specific charges for actively participating, facilitating, aiding and substantially contributing to the attacks on unarmed civilians, "causing commission of the horrific genocides, murders and rapes".