Death warrant read out to Nizami

Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami leader Motiur Rahman Nizami’s death warrant has been read out to the convicted war criminal at Kashimpur Central Jail in Gazipur.

The warrant by the International Crimes Tribunal was out on Tuesday after the Supreme Court published the full copy of the verdict, which confirmed death for the Jamaat-e-Islami chief.

The warrant, which was sent the Dhaka Central Jail the same day, reached the Dhaka Central Jail-2 in Gazpiur after 9am on Wednesday.

The prison’s Superintendent Prashant Kumar Banik told the death warrant was read out to Nizami around 10:15am. He then signed it.

Nizami will have 15 days time to file a review petition. If the review petition is rejected, the last option for Nizami will be to seek presidential mercy.

The ICT had, on Oct 29, 2014, ordered his execution, for the murders and rape in Pabna and the mass killing of intellectuals during the 1971 War of Independence.

Out of the 16 charges levelled by the prosecution, the war crimes tribunal had found Nizami guilty on eight counts.

A four-member top appeals bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha on Jan 6 this year upheld Nizami’s capital punishment for orchestrating the massacre of Bangladesh’s best minds with the help of ruthless Al-Badr militia.

Nizami’s case is the sixth one, among all war crimes convicts so far, to come to the stage of review petition after publication of the full verdict.

The 72-year old is the third former minister who is facing the gallows for war crimes.

Nizami, who was the industries minister during the BNP-led 2001-06 Four-Party alliance governments, was also handed down the death penalty in 2014 for arms trafficking in Chittagong’s sensational 10-truck arms haul case.