Bangladesh's Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the death sentence against the second highest ranking leader of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami for war crimes, including massacre of intelligentsia during the liberation war against Pakistan, paving the way for his execution.
Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha's four-member bench confirmed the death penalty for 67-year-old Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid, Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general and a former commander of Al-Badr, the militia raised by Pakistan to crush the Bangladesh's struggle for independence.
"(The death penalty is) maintained," pronounced Chief Justice Sinha nearly three weeks after the bench wrapped up the hearing on the appeal against the death penalty verdict handed down by the Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal.
Mujahid had led the infamous Gestapo-like 'Al-Badr' militia, an elite auxiliary force of Pakistani troops, to crush the independence struggle. He was found guilty in five of the seven charges pressed against him.
In one of the major charges, Mujahid was convicted for engaging the Al Badr in massacring dozens of top Bangladeshi intelligentsia, including scientists, academics and journalists, just two days ahead of the Pakistani surrender on December 16, 1971.
"The court found that the intellectuals were massacred by Al Badr under Mujahid's leadership while the Pakistani troops were busy with their preparedness for surrender," attorney general Mahbub-e-Alam told reporters after the verdict.
Mujajid filed his appeal on August 11 last year against his capital punishment handed down by the country's International Crimes Tribunal-2 on July 17, 2013.
He was a minister in the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led four-party alliance government (2001-2006) with Jamaat being its crucial partner.
Under a previous Supreme Court decision, he can now file a petition within next 15 days seeking a review of the judgement by the apex court itself as his last legal resort to evade the gallows.
Mujahid's lawyers said they planned to file the petition.
Demands for the trial of the war criminals resurfaced in 2008 largely after he commented that the "anti-liberation forces never existed" and denied Jamaat's role in 1971. The Jamaat-e-Islami called the liberation war a "civil war" which further infuriated the people as demands for trial grew louder.
At the time of judgement in 2013, the tribunal had said it reviewed Mujahid's role in 1971 during the trial and "the manner in which the accused exercised his position of authority on Al-Badar men, the principal perpetrators in executing the planned and designed mass killing of intellectuals can justify a finding of accused's substantial position of authority as an aggravating circumstance."
"You (Mujahid) had told one (Pakistani) army captain that before the proclamation of clemency by the (then Pakistani) president, they (the detainees) would have to be killed. Following this decision, you with the assistance of accomplices killed the civilian detainees by causing inhuman torture," the tribunal had said in the judgement.
Mujahid had also claimed he forgot "many things" he did in 1971.
The tribunal had said it also found out that Mujahid played an "active role in encouraging them (Al-Badr) to liquidate the pro-liberation Bengali civilians terming them 'miscreants' or 'agents of India'.
"We are of the unanimous view that there would be failure of justice in case 'capital punishment' is not awarded for the crimes," the verdict read.
Bangladesh started the war crimes trial in 2010, constituting the high-powered International Crimes Tribunal in line with ruling Awami League's electoral pledges.
The two tribunals have so far disposed 18 cases trying 18 people and handing down death penalty to 13 while three of them have been tried in absentia as they fled the country to evade justice.
In the appeal process against the verdicts, the Supreme Court enhanced the life imprisonment of one of the convicts -- Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Mollah -- to death penalty, finding the tribunal verdict too lenient.
In another case, the apex court reduced the death sentence of another Jamaat stalwart Delwar Hossain Sayeedi ordering him to be imprisoned until his death.
The rest of the tribunal judgements now also await hearing in the apex court for review under appeal by the convicts.
Authorities so far have executed two Jamaat leaders -- Mollah and Muhammad Quamaruzzaman.
Officially, three million people were killed in the war by the Pakistani army and their collaborators during the 1971 liberation war.
