[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 2



BANGLADESH:

Bangladesh death-row Islamist tycoon set to hang


A wealthy tycoon who was a chief financier for Bangladesh's largest Islamist 
party refused Friday to seek presidential clemency against his death sentence, 
an official said, paving the way for his imminent execution by hanging.

Mir Quasem Ali, a key leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was sentenced to 
death by a controversial war crimes tribunal for offenses committed during the 
1971 independence conflict with Pakistan.

After the Supreme Court rejected his final appeal on Tuesday against the 
penalty, Ali declined to seek a presidential pardon, which requires an 
admission of guilt.

"Today (Friday) he announced his decision he won't seek mercy from the 
president," Prasanta Kumar Bonik, a senior official at the Kashimpur high 
security jail where Ali is imprisoned, told AFP.

"The authorities will now decide when and where he will be executed," he said.

The Supreme Court's decision was a major blow for the Jamaat-e-Islami party, 
which the 63-year-old Ali had helped to revive in recent decades.

Security has been stepped up at the prison, located some 40 kilometers (25 
miles) north of Dhaka, after Ali announced his decision, local police chief 
Harun-or-Rashid told AFP.

5 opposition leaders including 4 leading Islamists have been executed for war 
crimes since 2013, all of them hanged just days after their appeals were 
rejected by the Supreme Court.

Their families said they had refused to seek a presidential pardon as they did 
not want to legitimize the whole trials process.

The war crimes tribunal set up by the government has divided the country, with 
supporters of Jamaat and the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) 
branding it a sham aimed at eliminating their leaders.

Ali, who after the war became a shipping and real estate tycoon, was convicted 
in November 2014 of a series of crimes during Bangladesh's war of separation 
from Pakistan, including the abduction and murder of a young independence 
fighter.

His son Mir Ahmed Bin Quasem, who was part of his legal defense team, was 
allegedly abducted by security forces earlier in August, which critics say was 
an attempt to sow fear and prevent protests against the imminent execution.

The executions and convictions of Jamaat officials plunged Bangladesh into one 
of its worst crises in 2013 when tens of thousands of Islamist activists 
clashed with police in protests that left some 500 people dead.

The Islamist party, which is banned from contesting elections, called a 
nationwide strike Wednesday, labeling the charges against Ali "false" and 
"baseless" and accusing the government of exacting "political vengeance".

A group of United Nations human rights experts last week urged Bangladesh to 
annul Ali's death sentence and to retry him in compliance with international 
standards.

(source: interaksyon.com)