Bangladesh | Execution of Bangabandhu killer Abdul Mazed is imminent, says home minister

Abdul Mazed, a key fugitive convict in the killing of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was sent to jail following his arrest on Tuesday.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan has said Abdul Mazed, a convicted killer of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, could be hanged any day now as President Abdul Hamid has thrown out his appeal for clemency.

“President Md Abdul Hamid has rejected his appeal for mercy. Now there remains no hurdle to his execution,” Khan told bdnews24.com on Thursday.

Asked when the execution could take place, the minister said: “The date has not been fixed yet. It seems unlikely that we'll be able to carry out the execution today because of Shab-e-Barat.”

“It might not happen tomorrow as well. But it could happen any day now, depending on the situation.”

The Father of the Nation was killed along with most of his family members on Aug 15 in 1975 at his home in Dhanmondi 32.

After a lengthy trial, the court awarded the death penalty to 11 suspects in Nov 2009. Of the killers, 5 were hanged on Jan 28, 2010 while six, including Mazed, were absconding.

Mazed was arrested in Dhaka's Mirpur-11 on Tuesday, 4 1/2 decades after the assassination of Bangabandhu.

A Dhaka court issued a death warrant against Mazed, paving the way for his execution.

The death sentence could be executed any day between Apr 21 and 28.

Mazed had already lost the scope of appealing against the death sentence as he was a fugitive from justice, according to Mosharraf Hossain Kazol, one of the lawyers for the state in the Bangabandhu murder case.

Source: bdnews24.com, Staff, April 9, 2020

AL demands immediate execution of Majed’s death penalty

The Awami League has demanded immediate execution of the death penalty against Abdul Majed, a convicted killer of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader, also the general secretary of ruling Awami League, made demand though a written speech to the media on Wednesday, reports UNB.

“We, on behalf of Bangladesh Awami League, are demanding the government and the authorities concerned for immediate execution of the death sentence,” Quader said.

There is no legal bar on execution of the death penalty according to the country’s constitution and the existing Criminal Code of Procedure, said the statement sent by AL Office Secretary Barrister Biplab Barua.

There is specific period for execution of the death sentence mentioned in the laws as well, he said.

The Supreme Court upheld the death sentence issued by the trial court and the counsels for the killers were present at all stage from the lower court to the Supreme Court. Subsequently, the Supreme Court rejected the review petition of the convicted killers, said Quader.

Majed went into hiding before the Awami League came to power in 1997 and detectives had been working to trace him ever since. Quader said the process to execute the verdict as per the court has already started.

On November 19, 2009, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty of 12 convicted former army officials for the assassination of Bangabandhu and his family members.

5 killers of Bangabandhu – Syed Farooq Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed and Mohiuddin Ahmed – were hanged in January 2010.

The fugitive killers are – former Lt Col Khandaker Abdur Rashid, SHBM Noor Chowdhury, Shariful Haque Dalim, Rashed Chowdhury, and Risaldar Moslehuddin.

Interpol has issued a red notice against them.

Another killer Aziz Pasha met natural death in Zimbabwe in 2001.

Obaidul Quader said the assassination of Bangabandhu and most of his family members was not only an effort to exterminate a party and its ideals but also it was to end the future of the country.

He also urged the authorities concerned to bolster efforts to bring back the rest fugitive killers of Bangabandhu.

"Strong efforts are ongoing to bring back the convicted killers who’re hiding abroad. We’re demanding to strengthen this diplomatic effort in the days to come," he said.

Source: The Financial Times, Staff, April 9, 2020

⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

California | Becerra vows to extend moratorium despite past support for capital punishment

SACRAMENTO—Democrat Xavier Becerra defended the death penalty while serving as California’s attorney general, a punishment his office actively sought in the case of a gunman convicted of an Orange County mass shooting, but as the front-running candidate for governor, he has vowed to block executions if elected in November. Becerra said he will extend the blanket reprieve for all death row inmates that Gov. Gavin Newsom enacted by executive order in 2019, saying he supported “moving our state away from a costly, flawed system that disproportionately impacts Black and brown communities and too often gets it wrong.”

Iran | Afghan Citizen Executed in Wheelchair Due to Severe Mobility Disability

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Iranian authorities have reportedly executed an Afghan citizen, identified as Valijan Nourzay, at the central prison in Rafsanjan, according to the human rights organization Hengaw. Hengaw said in a statement on Sunday, September 6, that Nourzay was executed early Wednesday last week at Rafsanjan Central Prison. According to the organization, Nourzay had a severe mobility disability and was executed while in a wheelchair. Hengaw, citing informed sources, reported that Nourzay had been pursued by Iranian authorities three years ago over an alleged murder. He was reportedly seriously wounded after Iranian security forces opened fire on him in Rafsanjan before being arrested and later sentenced to death.

Egypt TV presenter and 11 others sentenced to death in major drugs case

Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa and 11 others have been sentenced to death by hanging after being convicted of drug trafficking and rape, while nine defendants received life sentences and seven were acquitted. Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa, 39, has been sentenced to death by hanging along with 11 other defendants after being found guilty in a drugs case involving a criminal gang accused of importing ingredients used to manufacture narcotics for sale.

He Spent 27 Years on Death Row as a Wrongfully Convicted Man. What Comes Next?

23-hour solitary confinement. 115-degree heat. Jimmie Duncan is haunted by the decades he spent in Louisiana’s Angola Prison—and how, even after being released, he still isn’t truly free. Jimmie “Chris” Duncan wiped the sweat off his forehead as he assessed his temporary home from the parking lot of a rundown motel in central Louisiana. Sure, there’s drug dealing and prostitution, he said on a recent summer afternoon. And he suspected his neighbors were cooking meth on a floor below the room he paid $350 a week to rent.

California | He spent 19 years on death row. His conversion to Judaism helped him endure

Johnny Morales struggled to find sleep. He dozed off for a few moments, but officers came to his death row cell and woke him a little after midnight. They needed to inventory and box up his belongings. He was leaving San Quentin. Hands cuffed behind his back, he walked across the empty upper yard in the dim gray hours before daylight. An officer walked alongside him step for step, black latex-gloved fingers holding onto Morales’s arm. For almost 20 years, Morales could only experience the world outside his 4-by-11 foot cell in the condemned housing unit like this—chained and escorted by officers. Security protocols required all death row residents be handcuffed or shackled any time they were out in open space with staff.

Ex-corrections officials urge governor to commute Kansas death sentences

Former Kansas corrections officials are urging Governor Laura Kelly to grant clemency to the state's death row inmates. Former Kansas Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz has several reasons why he thinks the state should abolish the death penalty. Werholtz, who served as secretary from 2002 to 2010 and returned on an interim basis in 2019, uses his discussions with peers and family members of victims as well as experiences of seeing wrongly convicted people getting exonerated as his guiding points.

Florida executes Harold Gene Lucas

Florida state officials executed 74-year-old Harold Gene Lucas by lethal injection on Tuesday evening, concluding a 50-year legal saga stemming from the 1976 murder of a 16-year-old girl in Bonita Springs. STARKE, Fla. -- A man convicted of killing a teenage girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends was put to death Tuesday in the first of three executions planned this month in Florida. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, authorities said. He was sentenced to death for the 1976 shooting attack on Jill Piper and the wounding of her friends, Richard Byrd Jr. and Terri Rice.

Florida executes Daniel Owen Conahan Jr.

In Florida’s 15th execution this year, man put to death for killing linked to ‘Hog Trail Murders’ A Florida man convicted in one of a series of suspected killings that became known as the “Hog Trail Murders” in the 1990s was put to death Thursday, becoming the state’s 15th person executed this year. Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. after receiving a 3-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He had been sentenced to die for the 1996 kidnapping and strangling of Richard Allen Montgomery, whose mutilated body was found in a wooded southwest Florida area where authorities found the remains of at least 6 people over a 3-year span.

Arizona AG seeks execution date for man convicted in 1995 trooper killing

Trooper Bob Martin was killed during a traffic stop on the Beeline highway; execution for his killer could be as soon as January PHOENIX (AZFamily)—The Arizona Attorney General is asking for an execution date to be set for a man convicted in the killing of an Arizona State Trooper over 30 years ago. On Aug. 15, 1995, Trooper Bob Martin was shot and killed while performing a traffic stop along the Beeline Highway.

Florida set to carry out 14th execution this year in the nation's busiest death chamber

MIAMI (AP) — A Florida man convicted of fatally shooting a 16-year-old girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends is set to be executed Tuesday in the first of three lethal injections scheduled this month in the state. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, is set to receive a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke starting at 6 p.m. He would be the 14th prisoner put to death this year in Florida, and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has already signed death warrants for two more executions set for later this September.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog