Court issues death warrants for five Mujib killers

DHAKA - A Dhaka court Sunday issued death warrants against five former army officers convicted in the assassination of Bangladesh’s founding President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, court officials said.

District and sessions judge Mohd Abdul Gafur signed the warrants against five former military men - Syed Faruk Rahman, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Bazlul Huda, A.K.M. Mohiuddin Ahmed and Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan - after receiving the final Supreme Court verdict in the case.

The court sent the death warrants to the senior jail officials at Dhaka Central Jail asking the authorities to take necessary steps to execute the convicts.

Under the law, the death penalties are to be carried out between 21 and 28 days of issuance of the warrants if there is no review petition filed by the condemned men.

The Appellate Division of Bangladesh Supreme Court Nov 19 rejected the appeals of five, upholding the death sentences earlier handed down by a High Court Bench to 12 former military officers for killing if Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family members.

Six of the convicts are hiding abroad while one reportedly died in Zimbabwe in 2001, officials.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, one of Bangladesh’s independence heroes, was killed along with most of his family Aug 15, 1975 by a group of disgruntled army officers in a military putsch which overthrew the South Asian country’s elected government.

His assassins had been indemnified by subsequent rulers. A murder case was filed only after his eldest daughter, Hasina, became prime minister in 1996.