Family meets Bangladesh war crimes convict facing execution

The family members of Bangladesh's Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) leader Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, who is facing execution for atrocities committed during the country's 1971 Liberation War, met him one last time on Saturday, a media report said.

The family members arrived in two vans to meet the Jamaat leader at the Dhaka Central Jail. They left around 5.20 p.m. after spending about an hour inside, bdnews24.com reported.

Jail authorities had asked Kamaruzzaman's family members to meet him between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m., his son Hasan Iqbal said.

State Minister for Home Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters on Saturday that Kamaruzzaman has decided not to beg the president for mercy.

The Jamaat leader was indicted in June 2012 on seven charges of crimes against humanity including looting, mass killings, arson, rape and forcibly converting people into Muslims during the war.

Bangladesh's war crimes tribunal found him guilty of collaborating with Pakistani forces and committing war crimes, including mass killings.

He was sentenced to death in 2013.

Kamaruzzaman's death sentence plea was rejected on April 6 by a four-member bench headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha.

To file a mercy petition with President Abdul Hamid is the last resort for the Jamaat leader to save himself from being executed.