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DPA
DHAKA
THE HEAD of a banned Islamist outfit could be hanged at"any time"after his plea for clemency against death sentence was rejected by Bangladesh's president, a senior minister said on Sunday.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said authorities are prepared to execute Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami chief Abdul Hannan, convicted of a May 2004 attack on a shrine that killed three people in the north-eastern city of Sylhet.
Two of Hannan's associates also received the death sentence for the shrine attack, which also wounded more than 50 people, including former British envoy to Bangladesh Anwar Choudhury.
The trio filed petitions seeking presidential mercy after the Supreme Court last month upheld the death sentence pronounced by a local court in 2008.
"The petitions were rejected,"Khan said.
The execution will be carried out after an order from the home ministry reaches the prison authorities, jail officer Colonel Iqbal Hasan said, without giving further details.
During the 2004 attack, the British diplomat Choudhury was visiting a historic shrine in the north-eastern city of Sylhet, his birthplace.
Investigators said the Islamists threw the grenades at Choudhury as he left a mosque near the shrine following Friday Muslim prayers.
