Bangabandhu murder convict Abdul Majed is likely to be executed on Saturday, says a cabinet member.
“Majed might be hanged tonight,” Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told UNB.
Earlier on Friday, family members met Majed at the Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj.
On Wednesday, President Abdul Hamid turned down Majed’s clemency plea, clearing the way for his execution after the death warrant was issued by a Dhaka court earlier in the day.
Also, on the same day, Dhaka’s District and Session’s Court issued the death warrant for Majed after he was produced before his court from the jail.
After spending life as a fugitive for more than 20 years, Majed, a sacked Bangladesh Army officer who later served in different government positions, was arrested in the early hours of Tuesday in capital Dhaka.
He was produced in the court, which sent him to jail the same day.
On August 15, 1975, Bangladesh’s founding father Bangabandhu and most of his family members were assassinated by a cabal of military men.
After the Awami League assumed office in 1996, the ordinance was abrogated in November the same year, clearing the way for the killers to be brought to justice.
In 1998, a Dhaka sessions judge’s court found 15 people guilty and awarded the death penalty. In 2001, the High Court acquitted three but upheld the death sentences of 12.
In 2010, the Appellate Division upheld the verdict. The same year, five of the convicts -- Syed Farooq Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed, and Mohiuddin Ahmed -- were hanged.
Another convict Aziz Pasha died as a fugitive in Zimbabwe.
Majed was one of six absconding convicts along with Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haque Dalim, M Rashed Chowdhury, SHMB Noor Chowdhury and Risaldar Moslemuddin, until he was arrested on Tuesday.
