Whole nation relieved after war criminal Nizami’s verdict, says attorney general

The Supreme Court’s rejection of the petition by war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami to review his death sentence has brought a sense of relief to the whole nation, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam has said.

Jamaat-e-Islami chief Nizami was the head of the Jamaat's erstwhile students' wing Islami Chhatra Sangha in 1971 and commanded the Al-Badr militia that was notorious for its ruthlessness.

“The whole nation is relieved over the verdict,” Alam told the media at his office after the chief justice-led appeals bench gave its decision on Thursday.

In an instant reaction outside the courtroom, the attorney general said that the court ‘dismissed’ Nizami’s plea.

“The verdict finally secured justice for the killings of intellectuals. Nizami inspired the Al-Badr and was responsible for the massacre of the intellectuals,” Alam told reporters at his office later.

The Al-Badr brigade had gone on a genocidal rampage to cleanse the flower of Bengali intellengsia to deprive the nation-in-the-making of its be.

About what happens now , the attorney general said that the jail authorities will ask Nizami whether he would seek mercy to the president once a certified copy of the review verdict reaches them.

“If he goes for clemency, then it’s up to the president. Otherwise, the government will  execute the death sentence.”

On Jan 6 this year, the Supreme Court delivered its verdict over Nizami’s appeal against the International Crimes Tribunal’s verdict, when it upheld the death penalty awarded to him.

Nizami, the second politician to have served as minister to walk to the gallows for war crimes after his deputy Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid, is now kept at the Kashimpur prison in Gazipur.

The Jamaat supremo is the fifth war criminal to carry a verdict for maximum punishment that is at the final stages of execution.