DHAKA: Amnesty International has urged Bangladesh not to execute five condemned convicts, former army officers, sentenced to death for the killing of country's founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
The international human rights watchdog said the killing of Sheikh Mujib and his family members on August 15, 1975 was grave human rights abuses and the killers should be brought to justice.
'However, bringing people to justice must not itself violate the human rights of the accused,' it said.
In a statement issued on Friday, AI urged the president, Zillur Rahman, to commute the death sentences 'as a matter of urgency'.
It also urged the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, to request the president to commute the sentences.
'Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender, or the method used by the state to kill the prisoner,' said AI.
The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the appeals of the five jailed convicts, upholding a previous High Court order awarding death sentences to twelve former army officers in all, six of whom remain fugitive while one has since died as a fugitive in Zimbabwe.
The five condemned convicts - retired major general Bazlul Huda, dismissed lieutenant colonel Syed Faruk Rahman, retired lieutenant colonel Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, retired colonel Mohiuddin Ahmed and retired major AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed - await their fate now in Dhaka Central Jail.
'The death penalty violates the right to life as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights', AI said.