A Bangladeshi JI leader lost his final appeal Monday against a death sentence for overseeing a massacre in 1971, sparking protests by his supporters that left one dead. Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, the third most senior figure in the Jamaat-i-Islami party, could now be hanged within days or even hours for the slaughter at the so-called "Village of Widows".
His lawyer Shishir Manir said authorities have asked Kamaruzzaman's family to meet him at Dhaka's main jail later Monday "on an emergency basis".
"It seems the authorities are making preparations to execute him," Manir told AFP.
In the southern coastal town of Noakhali, police opened fire on around a dozen Jamaat supporters after they took to the streets to protest at the court's decision.
"We fired in self-defence after they hurled rocks at us," local police chief Anwar Hossain told AFP, saying the protester was killed during the live firing and another was injured. Supreme Court Chief Justice S.K. Sinha ruled that a review petition filed by Kamaruzzaman's lawyers had been dismissed and a death sentence passed in 2013 should stand.
The 62-year-old's only chance of avoiding the gallows will be if he is granted clemency by President Abdul Hamid.
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