Bangladesh authorities are expected to hang a top Islamist leader today for overseeing a massacre during the nation's 1971 independence war, after he refused to seek clemency from the country's president Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, the third most senior figure in the Jamaat-e-Islami party, could be executed today night, his lawyer said, after his hanging, originally scheduled for the morning, was postponed.
No official reason was given for the delay, but junior home minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters the 62-year-old was still set to be hanged in the capital's main jail today.
"The hanging of Kamaruzzaman will take place today (Saturday)," Khan said in remarks published by the mass circulation Bengali daily Prothom Alo.
"It's an indication that he may be executed tonight," Manir added.
Khan, however, said the authorities had decided Kamaruzzaman would not be granted any more time to seek mercy.
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.
"Village of Widows"
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 conflict led to the creation of an independent Bangladesh from what was then East Pakistan.
The UN on Wednesday urged Bangladesh against carrying out the sentence, saying his trial did not meet "fair international" standards.
The nine-month conflict, one of the bloodiest in world history, led to the creation of an independent Bangladesh from what was then East Pakistan.
Three women who lost their husbands testified against him in one of the most emotive of all the war crimes trials.
Jamaat, the nation's largest Islamist party, is an ally of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), whose leader Khaleda Zia is trying to topple Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's secular government.
Jamaat's members have been accused of being behind a number of deadly firebomb attacks since the start of the year, including on buses. The violence in the last three months left at least 120 people dead.
Jamaat and the BNP have previously charged that the war crimes trials are mainly aimed at silencing Hasina's opponents rather than delivering justice.
Hasina's government says the trials -- which lack any international oversight are needed to heal the wounds of the conflict.
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