Dhaka –Business tycoon and Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali, convicted in war crimes, has decided not to seek presidential clemency as Bangladesh’s top court confirms his death sentence in crimes committed during the country’s 1971 war of liberation against Pakistan.

A jail official on Friday said that the death row convict made this decision two days after his relatives visited him on Thursday.

The 64-year-old Jamaat-e-Islami leader informed the jail authorities that he would not seek the pardon, jail officer Prashanta Kumar Banik told local media. Now there is no legal barrier for his execution.

The war crimes convict had earlier sought time to decide whether he would seek the mercy as his relatives, including his wife Khandakar Ayesha Khatun, visited him on Wednesday at Kashimpur high-security jail.

Quasem, a business tycoon and financier of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party, was awarded death penalty on November 3, 2014 by a special war crimes tribunal for crimes committed during the nine-month war.

He was convicted of mass killing, abduction and dumping bodies of unarmed civilians in the south-eastern district of Chittagong during the war.

Quasem challenged the special court’s verdict with the appeal court which upheld the death sentence. He then pleaded for review of the appeal court’s decision. The Supreme Court last week rejected his review and confirmed the death sentence. He had the last option to seek presidential mercy.

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