The leader of Bangladesh’s top Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami is set to hang within days after the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld his death sentence for war crimes. Motiur Rahman Nizami was convicted of murder, rape and orchestrating the killing of intellectuals during the country’s 1971 independence struggle. “We’re satisfied. Now there is no bar to execute him unless he seeks clemency from the president and the president pardons him,” Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told AFP after the Supreme Court dismissed Nizami’s final appeal. A defence lawyer for the 73-year-old said he would not seek clemency and Alam said jail authorities would begin preparing for the execution once they received a copy of the verdict.
