Widely perceived as the financial mastermind of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, which actively opposed Bangladesh in the Liberation War of 1971, Mir Quasem Ali controlled the financial lifeline of his party.
With direct and indirect interests in a host of ventures, Quasem Ali’s empire spanned from tourism to telecoms. He embarked on his business ventures as coordinator of non-government organisation Rabeta Alam al-Islami in 1980.
He went on to become the founding vice-chairman of Islami Bank three years later, by which time Quasem Ali was well on his way to building the empire that virtually sustains Jamaat in Bangladesh.
Together with its sister parties in India and Pakistan, the Jamaat-e-Islami is arguably the largest Islamic fundamentalist platform in the sub-continent.
The Jamaat financier was also a founding member of Islami Bank Foundation that currently has numerous subsidiaries including Islami Bank Hospital, Islami Bank Medical College, Islami Bank Nursing Institute, Islami Bank Institute of Technology, Islami Bank Model School and College, Islami Bank Mahila Madrasa, Islami Bank Forkania Maktab and the Bangladesh Cultural Centre among other interests.
As a member and representative of the Bangladesh Islamic Centre, Quasem Ali found himself on the Islami Bank board as a vice-chairman in 1983. Subsequently, he also represented Ibn Sina Trust, which he founded, on the same bank’s board of directors.
Ibn Sina Trust subsidiaries include pharmaceuticals, a medical college and hospital, and diagnostic centres among other things.
Said to be third within the command structure of al-Badr, a pro-Pakistan vigilante militia group during the 1971 Liberation War, Quasem Ali also headed the Diganta Media Corporation which owns a Bengali newspaper, Daily Naya Diganta, and Diganta TV, defunct since 2013 for instigating religious sentiments over a mass rally in Dhaka by radical group Hifazat-e-Islam.
He and his family are also said to have stakes in a number of companies of the Keari group which owns a host of subsidiaries with interests in real estate, shipping, telecoms, poultry and tourism besides other ventures.
Quasem, who was also chairman of Eden Shipping Lines, also owns five luxury vessels that ply the Cox's Bazar to Saint Martin's Island route.
He is a former country director of Rabeta Alam al-Islami, an NGO that receives hefty donations from several oil-rich gulf Arabian countries. The NGO has been accused of funding militant training with money donated to help Rohingya refugees in Cox's Bazar.
Bangladesh Bank in 2007 found evidence of suspicious transactions by the NGO with several organisations with dubious activities. Quasem's Islami Bank was also fined several times for violation of the Anti-Money Laundering Law in connection with several accounts linked to militants.
Quasem played a key role in founding the al-Badr militia, which along with other collaborators tried to prevent the birth of Bangladesh and attacked innocent unarmed civilians suspected of supporting Bangladesh’s liberation struggle.
These vigilante groups were responsible for unleashing a campaign of terror and widespread atrocities that amount to war crimes.
Related: Quasem was desperate to stay aliveBorn on December 31, 1952 in Harirampur Chala village, Manikganj, Quasem grew up in Chittagong where his father Tayyeb Ali was a fourth-grade employee of the telegraph office.
Quasem went into hiding after independence but returned to lead Jamaat's rechristened student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir in 1977 following the coup d'etat of 1975. He quickly moved to the top echelons of Jamaat-e-Islami and went on to become a key party man although not a frontline politician.
The "Bangali Khan" – a moniker that Quasem earned for his enthusiastic brutality on behalf of the Pakistani junta - was executed at 10:30pmon Saturday for his role during the 1971 Liberation War. He was found guilty of abduction, confinement, torture and murder.