An ex-officer hanged for the assassination of the father of the Bangladeshi nation

Text by: Juliette Gheerbrant Follow

In Bangladesh, an officer convicted of the murder of the country's founding father and its first president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was executed last night. Sentenced to death in absentia in 1998, Abdul Majed was hanged last night, announced the Minister of Justice. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was the father of the country's current Prime Minister, and the country is celebrating the centenary of his birth this year.

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His appeal for mercy was not heeded. Abdul Majed was hanged last night, he was arrested on Tuesday April 7 in the streets of Dhaka after 25 years on the run. The convict had fled the country when Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of the assassinated President Mujibur, became Prime Minister in 1996. She had quickly ended the amnesty law that had protected those responsible for 21 years. A law introduced by the military governments which had succeeded after the murder of his father.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had been killed with most of his family in 1975, four years after the country's independence. That day, Sheikh Hassina had escaped the assassination, because she and her sister were in Switzerland.

At a spearhead of the fight against the military dictatorship, Sheikh Hasina in power since 2009, recently gave an authoritarian turn to his power, by neutralizing in particular his rival, ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia of which she has long accused the deceased husband of having ordered the assassination of Mujibur.

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