Motiur Rahman Nizami

Motiur Rahman Nizami (মতিউর রহমান নিজামী; 31 March 1943 – 11 May 2016) was a politician, former Minister of Bangladesh, Islamic scholar, writer, and the former leader of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami.

He is noted for leading the terror squad Al-Badr during the Bangladesh Liberation War.

Nizami was born on 31 March 1943 in the village of Monmothpur of Santhia Upazila at Pabna.

His father was Lutfur Rahman Khan.

He completed his secondary education at a madrasa.

Nizami rose in the ranks of the East Pakistan branch of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan in the 1960s, having led the student organization, Islamic Chhatro Shango (now Islami Chhatro Shibir).

After the independence of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first president, banned Jamaat from political participation as it had opposed the liberation war, and many of its members collaborated with the Pakistan Army during the conflict.

Nizami and some other top leaders left the country.

In 1963, he received his Kamil degree in Islamic jurisprudence from Madrasa-e-Alia in Dhaka.

He earned his bachelor's from the University of Dhaka in 1967.

Nizami was the last high-profile suspect to be tried for war crimes of the 1971 Bangladesh Genocide; the court delayed his verdict in June 2014 because of the state of his health.

In 1971, Nizami was a chief of the infamous Al-Badr militia.

Along with the Pakistan Army, this militia abducted and massacred 989 Bengali intellectuals including professors, journalists, litterateurs, doctors and pro-Bangladesh activists in general.

After the assassination by military officers of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in August 1975, Ziaur Rahman became president in a coup in 1977.

He permitted top Jamaat leaders, such as Ghulam Azam and Nizami, to return to Bangladesh in 1978; they revived the Jamaat party, which became the largest Islamist party in the country.

Nizami emerged as a key leader of the Jamaat, organising the Islami Chhatra Shibir (Jammat Students Organisation), which serves as the youth wing of the Jamaat.

Nizami was the Member of Parliament for the Pabna-1 constituency from 1991 to 1996 and again from 2001 to 2006.

He also served as the Bangladeshi Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Industry.

In 1991, he was elected as a Member of Parliament, representing Jamaat-e-Islami for the constituency of Pabna-1; he was Jamaat's Parliamentary Party leader until 1994.

During the 1996 elections, he lost to the candidates of both the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), an ally of Jamaat, and the Awami League in his constituency.

Professor Abu Sayed of the Awami League gained his seat.

Nizami took over as the leader of Jamaat from Ghulam Azam in 2001.

In the same year, representing his party as part of a four-party alliance including BNP, Nizami won a seat in Parliament in Pabna-1, receiving 57.68% of the votes.

From 2001 to 2003, he served as the Minister of Agriculture, then as the Minister of Industry from 2003 to 2006.

In 2004, Nizami was convicted under separate charges for arms trafficking to the state of Assam, India and was sentenced to death, along with 13 other men in January 2014.

Nizami was defeated in the December 2008 general election as a candidate of the Four-Party Alliance, losing his seat for Pabna-1 to Md. Shamsul Haque of the Awami League.

Nizami received 45.6% of the votes.

The Awami League took two-thirds of the seats in Parliament.

In May 2008, the Anti-corruption Commission of Bangladesh indicted Nizami in the GATCO Corruption case, in which he along with several other politicians were alleged to have illegally granted a container-depot contract to the local firm GATCO.

A warrant was issued to arrest Nizami along with 12 others on 15 May 2008.

Nizami was charged with conspiring with 12 other politicians to award the contract to GATCO although the company did not meet the conditions of the tender.

The prosecution alleged that the deal with GATCO caused a total loss of more than 100 million Bangladeshi Taka to the Government.

Nizami denied the charges and said they were politically motivated.

He was released after two months on bail.

While various political entities and international organizations had originally welcomed the trials, in November 2011 Human Rights Watch criticized the government for aspects of their progress, lack of transparency, and reported harassment of defense lawyers and witnesses representing the accused.

On 29 October 2014, he was convicted of masterminding the Demra massacre by the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh.

On 29 October 2014, he was convicted and sentenced to death for his role in masterminding the Demra massacre, in which 800–900 unarmed Hindu civilians were killed after the women were raped.

He was executed by hanging at Dhaka Central Jail on 11 May 2016.

He is the third minister of Bangladesh to be hanged.

He was frequently listed on The 500 Most Influential Muslims.