Bangladesh jail authorities ask family members to meet death row war criminal Islamist party chief

Bangladesh jail authorities have asked family members to meet death row war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami, raising speculation that the Islamist party chief might be executed Tuesday night.

The jail authorities Tuesday evening asked the family members to meet Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party's Ameer (president) Nizami at the Dhaka Central Jail at about 8:00 p.m. Tuesday night, said a counsel for the condemned war criminal who did not like to be named.

Earlier in the day Home Minister Asaduzzman Khan told reporters that "If Nizami ignores the last legal resort, he may be executed anytime."

Quoting Nizami's family members, Tajul Islam, a counsel for Nizami, had earlier said that his client won't seek presidential mercy, the last option which Nizami has to stop his imminent execution.

An official announcement on whether Nizami will be hanged on Tuesday night is yet to come.

Security has been beefed up in and around the Dhaka Central Jail, where 74-year old Nizami, who served as agriculture and industries minister in ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's 2001-2006 cabinet, has been kept.

Bangladesh's apex court on May 5 rejected Nizami's final legal appeal against the death sentence given to him by a special tribunal in October, 2014.

Nizami is among the top Jamaat leaders who have been tried in two war crimes tribunals which Prime Minister Sheikh Hasian's Bangladesh Awami League-led government formed in 2010 to bring the perpetrators of 1971 to book.

Source: XINHUA