Bangla Jamaat stalwart declines to seek presidential clemency

Bangladesh's fundamentalist Jamaat-e- Islami-linked leader and media tycoon Mir Quasem Ali on death row today refused to seek presidential clemency over war crimes, paving the way for his execution any time now.
"He (Ali) told us he will not seek presidential clemency as we approached him to know his decision this afternoon," Prashanta Kumar Banik, superintendent of the high-security Kashimpur Central Jail, where Ali is lodged in a special cell, told reporters.
The presidential mercy was the last resort for 63-year- old Ali, who is the infamous pro-Pakistan Al-Badr militia's third most important figure, to save his neck after the Supreme Court rejected his final review petition on Tuesday.

"Now there remains no bar in executing him anytime... The government can make preparation for his execution," attorney general Mahbubey Alam told PTI.
Alam earlier said that unlike the ordinary cases, the condemned war criminals were not entitled to a certain period before being hanged after the apex court verdict as they were tried under a special law.
Ali was conveyed the verdict on Wednesday, a day after the Supreme Court upheld an earlier ruling that had handed down a death sentence, following which he had sought time to decide over seeking the clemency.

Nine of his family members, including his wife Khandakar Ayesha Khatun, met him in jail that day.

Quasem, widely considered as the top financier of Jamaat, said he would not decide what to do next until his son, allegedly picked up by unidentified men 22 days ago, returns home, Ayesha told reporters.
Prosecutors have said that Ali made a USD 25 million deal with US lobby firm Cassidy and Associates for engaging with the governments of the US and Bangladesh to protect "his interest".
The evidence suggested that in March, 2014, another deal worth of USD 50,000 was struck with the same lobby firm on Ali's behalf for "condemning" the actions of the International Crimes Tribunal-Bangladesh.
Several political analysts and lawyers said the business tycoon and Jamaat stalwart has exhausted all efforts to influence his trial on charges of committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.

As a young leader of Jamaat's the then student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha (ICS) in 1971, Ali generated panic in public mind and earned curse of innocent people by his ruthless and brutal activities to mime the liberation aspirants.
Five war crimes convicts have been executed so far since Bangladesh initiated the trial process in 2010 for the 1971 war criminals in 2010. Two of them had sought the presidential clemency which was rejected.
The last execution was that of Jamaat chief Motiur Rahman Nizami over war crimes on May 10 this year.