BANGLADESH: 2 OPPOSITION LEADERS EXECUTED DESPITE CONCERNS

Bangladesh executed two influential opposition leaders on charges of war crimes during the country's 1971 independence war, a senior jail official said, despite concerns that the legal proceedings against them were flawed and threats of violence by their supporters.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, secretary general of the main Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, were "hanged together, at the same time" at 12:55 a.m. at Dhaka Central Jail in the nation's capital, Senior Jail Superintendent Mohammad Jahangir Kabir told The Associated Press.
Security was strengthened near the jail and elsewhere to avoid any violence. A few hours after the execution, a security detail escorted ambulances carrying the men's bodies to their ancestral homes where their families were to perform burial rituals.
The Jamaat-e-Islami party, whose two other senior leaders already have been executed on war crimes charges, issued a statement calling for a nationwide general strike on Monday (November 21).
Chowdhury was convicted on of charges of torture, rape and genocide during the country's independence war against Pakistan, while Mujahid was found guilty on charges of genocide, conspiracy in killing intellectuals, torture and abduction.
On November 18, Bangladesh's Supreme Court upheld their death sentences, and on November 21, President Mohammad Abdul Hamid rejected a clemency appeal, clearing the way for the executions. The families of Chowdhury and Mujahid met them for the last time inside Dhaka Central Jail on Saturday evening, authorities said.
Jamaat-e-Islami and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party say the trials were politically motivated.