Kamaruzzaman meets family, yet to seek mercy

Death-row war crimes convict Muhammad Kamaruzzaman met his family at Dhaka Central Jail this evening.

     - Family to mull seeking mercy

     - Family meeting for over an hour

     - Execution not tonight

His wife Nurun Nahar accompanied 15 others, including her children and other relatives, to meet the Jamaat-e-Islami assistant secretary general inside the jail around 6:45pm.

Also read: Kamaruzzaman won’t be hanged tonight

After over an hour of meeting, Hasan Iqbal, elder son of Kamaruzzaman, told waiting reporters that the family will discuss with lawyers on whether to seek presidential mercy.

“We will talk to the lawyers after receiving the copy of the Supreme Court verdict and then decide,” he said. “My father is strong, he seemed calm and cool.”

The family meeting was held hours after the Supreme Court scrapped Kamaruzzaman’s plea to review his death penalty. His counsels were denied permission to meet him after they asked for it earlier in the day.

The prison authorities dispatched a letter to Kamaruzzaman’s house at Mirpur in the capital, Dhaka, to meet him at jail by 5:00pm.

If the verdict is carried out, he will be the second Jamaat leader after Quader Mollah to be executed for the 1971 offences.

Mollah was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail on December 12, 2013.

Since the SC ruling came earlier today, people from different walks of life were discussing over social media platforms whether Kamaruzzaman would be executed today.

The SC rejected an appeal of Kamaruzzaman seeking review of its verdict that upheld his death penalty for crimes against humanity committed during Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971.

International Crimes Tribunal-2, where the trial of Kamaruzzaman was held, issued the death warrant on February 19.

On May 9, 2013, the Tribunal-2 found Kamaruzzaman guilty in five of the seven charges pressed against him and sentenced him to death in two charges, life term in two and 10 years' imprisonment in another.

Kamaruzzaman appealed to the apex court on June 6, 2013, and the SC upheld the tribunal verdict on November 3, 2014, but commuted one death sentence to life term imprisonment.

The Jamaat leader filed the petition seeking review of the SC decision on March 5.