Abdul Quader Mollah, a senior leader of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party, was executed on Thursday for genocide during Bangladesh’s 1971 liberation war, hours after the Supreme Court rejected his review petition.
The 65-year-old Mollah, infamous as the “Butcher of Mirpur”, was the first politician to be executed for massacre and rape during the war of independence from Pakistan.
Mollah was hanged at 10.01 pm (local time) in Dhaka Central Jail, a prison official said.
The apex court on Thursday upheld the death sentence for the assistant secretary-general of the right wing party, rejecting his review plea two days after his hanging was dramatically put on hold in a last-minute reprieve.
Mollah sided with Pakistani troops during the war and gained notoriety for leading the infamous Al-Badr militia in the Dhaka suburb of Mirpur, where he had a role in slaughtering a large number of people, including women and children.