President is our guardian, Mujahid tells son in jail

Death-row war criminal Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid will decide on seeking presidential clemency after consulting lawyers, his son has said.

The members of Mujahid's family went to meet him at the Dhaka Central Jail on Thursday after the Supreme Court rejected his petition for a review of his death sentence on Wednesday.
 
His son Ali Ahmed Mabrur spoke to journalists outside the jail at the end of the visit a little after 2:30pm.
 
"He (Mujahid) said, 'The president is the guardian of the State and the people. He is also a lawyer. So, I will take the decision on whether to seek his pardon after consulting my lawyers'," Mabrur said quoting his father.
 
Besides Mabrur, 11 other members of Mujahid's family visited him in jail for about an hour.
 
They were his wife Tamanna-e-Jahan, sons Ali Ahmed Tahjib, Ali Ahmed Tahkik, daughter Tamanna Binte Mujahid, brother Mohammad Khaled, daughters-in-law Syeda Rubaiyaja, Nasrin Akter and Farzana Zerin, and relatives Nurul Huda Mahmud, ANM Fazlul Habib Sabbir and Ojyer MA Akram.
 
Mabrur said Mujahid had heard about the dismissal of his petition but the jail authorities had not conveyed anything in writing or given him a copy of the verdict.
 
"Father said, 'If I am hanged despite being innocent, it will amount to coldblooded murder'," Mabrur added.
 
He also said the Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general was in good health.
 
The party’s next course of action has not been discussed, he said.
 
Members of the family of another death-row war criminal BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, whose review petition was also rejected on Wednesday, met him in jail.
 
The two convicts now have presidential clemency as their last option to evade execution.
 
The government will execute them if they do not seek presidential mercy or if their prayers are rejected.