BD leader Mujibur Rahman’s killer hanged to death

DHAKA: Bangladesh Sunday executed a captain less than a week after he was arrested after nearly 25 years on the run over the assassination of the country’s founding leader. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, father of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, was assassinated along with most of his family in a military coup on August 15, 1975.

In 1998, Abdul Majed was sentenced to death in absentia along with a dozen other army officers over the murders. The Supreme Court upheld the verdict in 2009 and five of the killers were executed several months later.

On Tuesday, the counter terrorism police officers arrested Majed as he rode arickshaw in the capital early in the morning. Prison authorities carried out Majed’s execution by hanging days later after the president rejected his mercy plea.

He was hanged to death at 12.01 am Sunday (1801GMT), Law Minister Anisul Huq told reporters. The execution took place at the country’s largest prison just outside the capital Dhaka. Majed’s wife met him at the prison one last time on Saturday evening when the prison authorities had scheduled his execution.