Bangladesh President rejects Mufti Hannan's clemency plea

Dhaka: Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal on Sunday said there was no legal bar to execute the death penalty on militant leader Mufti Hannan as President Abdul Hamid has rejected the clemency plea, a media reported.

"The Kashimpur Jail authorities have started the preparation, Mufti Hannan will be executed anytime," the Home Minister said while talking to media at his secretariat office here, the Dhaka Tribune reported.

"There's no threat of militant attack centring the execution of the militant leader," he added in reply to a query.

On March 21, the Supreme Court's Appellate Division released the full text of its verdict confirming the death penalties of Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami Bangladesh (HujiB) leader Mufti Hannan and his two aides.

The culprits were sentenced to death for the assassination attempt on Anwar Choudhury, the then British High Commissioner to Bangladesh, during his visit to Hazrat Shahjalal's shrine in Sylhet city on May 21, 2004.

The attack killed three persons and severely injured Anwar.

On December 23, 2008, a Sylhet court sentenced the trio to death and two others to lifetime imprisonment for their roles in the attack. The High Court upheld the sentences in February 2016.

Hannan was also sentenced to death for the 2001 Ramna Batamul bombing, in which 10 persons were killed.

The HujiB militant group was formed in 1992 and claims to have carried out at least 14 attacks, killing more than 100 people in the pursuit of "establishing Shariah law in Bangladesh".