Capt (dismissed) Abdul Majed, condemned killer of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was hanged on Saturday night at Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj.
The hangmen (Jallad) team led by Shahjahan Bhuiyan had completed the hanging arrangements of the convict by Saturday evening, according to the jail authority.
Earlier, Inspector General of Prisons Brig Gen AKM Mustafa Kamal Pasha told the Daily Observer that Majed would be executed at 12:00am.
The family members of Abdul Majed, on Friday met him in prison ahead of his execution. As a part of the formalities of executing someone's death penalty, the jail authority called the convict's family members for the last meeting.
District and Sessions Judge's Court of Dhaka issued a death warrant for Majed, who was arrested from Mirpur on April 7.
On April 8, Majed filed a mercy petition to President Md Abdul Hamid, seeking clemency.
The President on Thursday rejected his mercy plea, removing the last hurdle for his hanging.
Police's Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit arrested
him in a predawn raid at Mirpur area while he was roaming around a shrine.
Abdul Majed was arrested in Dhaka on Tuesday after hiding in India for nearly two-and-a-half decades.
Majed is one of the six absconding ex-army officers who were handed down capital punishment after trial in absentia.
A prosecution lawyer said Majed told the court that he returned to Bangladesh on March 15 or 16.
Twelve ex-military officers were sentenced to death for the August 15 killing of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with most of his family members in 1975.
Five of them have been executed while one died of natural causes as he was on the run abroad.
Bangabandhu's elder daughter and incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and younger daughter Sheikh Rehana survived as they were on a visit to the then West Germany at the time of the putsch, which also toppled Bangladesh's post independence government.
The five convicts were hanged at Dhaka Central Jail on January 28 in 2010, after a protracted legal procedure while the delayed trial process began in 1996 when an infamous indemnity law was scrapped as it was protecting the assassins from justice until then.
Majed was one of the remaining fugitives believed to be hiding abroad with no confirmed whereabouts.
The rest of the fugitives included the key mastermind of the coup ex-Lt Col Abdur Rashid.
Interpol issued red alert against the absconders believed to be hiding in several countries including Pakistan.
Bangladesh confirmed two cases where two convicts took refuge in the United States and Canada, one of them is said to have shot dead Bangladesh's founder.
Dhaka said it was trying to extradite them but Canada declined to entertain the request citing provisions of the country's laws.
After the 1975 carnage, Majed was rehabilitated in civil service during the subsequent regime of former military-dictator-turned-politician Ziaur Rahman as an ex-cadre official and posted as the director of National Savings Department.
He later fled the country while serving in the Finance Ministry along with other 1975 coup plotters as the 1996 general elections brought Awami League back to power which vowed to expose to justice Bangabandhu killers in line with its election manifesto.
Earlier Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal hinted to the media on Saturday that arrested Capt (dismissed) Abdul Majed 'might be hanged tonight (Saturday night).'
On August 15 in 1975, Bangladesh's founding father Bangabandhu and most of his family members were assassinated by a cabal of military men.
Eighteen members of his family, including Bangamata Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib, three sons - Capt Sheikh Kamal, Lt Sheikh Jamal and 10-year-old Sheikh Russel, two daughters-in-law Sultana Kamal and Rosy Jamal, brother Sheikh Naser, peasant leader Abdur Rab Serniabat, youth leader Sheikh Fazlul Haq Moni and his wife Arzu Moni, Baby Serniabat, Sukanta Babu, Arif and Abdul Nayeem Khan Rintu, were, among others, killed on that fateful night.
Military Secretary Brig Gen Jamil was also killed. Several members of a family in the capital's Mohammadpur area were killed by artillery shells fired by the killers on the same day.
During the assassination of Bangabandhu on August 15 in 1975, Majed, Noor and Risaldar Moslehuddin along with others were present there when he was an army lieutenant.
On November 19 in 2009, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty of 12 convicted former army officials for the assassination of Bangabandhu and his family members.
Five killers of Bangabandhu - Syed Farooq Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed and Mohiuddin Ahmed - were hanged in January 2010.
Another killer Aziz Pasha met a natural death in Zimbabwe in 2001.
The fugitive killers are former Lt Col Khandaker Abdur Rashid, SHBM Noor Chowdhury, Shariful Haque Dalim, Rashed Chowdhury, and Risaldar Moslehuddin.
Of them, the government knows the whereabouts of Noor Chowdhury, Rashed Chowdhury and Moslehuddin while it was not sure about the other three fugitives-Rashid, Dalim and Majed.
According to government sources, Noor Chowdhury has been living in Canada and Rashed Chowdhury in the USA.
