President refuses to pardon Bangabandhu's killer Mazed

NEWS DESK 

Bangladesh President Abdul Hamid has rejected the mercy petition filed by captain (retd) Abdul Mazed, one of the condemned convicts in the murder of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Hours after the convict filed the petition on Wednesday night, the President rejected it paving the way for his execution, a source in the Bangabhaban confirmed it to media.

Abdul Mazed sought clemency to the President Abdul Hamid after his death warrant reached at the central jail on Wednesday afternoon. The death warrant was issued by a Dhaka court earlier on the day.

The execution will take place between 21 and 28 days since the issuance of the death warrant. 

Earlier on Tuesday, a team of police's Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit arrested Mazed from the capital's Mirpur area around 3:30am. 

The trial of Bangabandhu assassination case started in 1997, 22 years after a group of disgruntled army officers assassinated him along with most of his family members on August 15 in 1975 in his Dhamandi-32 residence. 

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on November 19, 2009 upheld the death penalty of 12 convicted ex-army officers for the assassinations.

Five convicts were executed on January 27 in 2010. They are Syed Faruk Rahman, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Bazlul Huda, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed and Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan. 

However, six more self-confessed killers — Khandaker Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haque Dalim, Noor Chowdhury, Rashed Chowdhury, Abdul Mazed and Moslehuddin Khan — have remained at large for the last four decades.