DHAKA: Bangladesh today executed five men who killed founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975, ending a 30-year fight for justice by his daughter, who is now prime minister.

The five were hanged by specially-trained fellow convicts just after midnight, when their last-minute pleas for clemency were rejected.

“Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed satisfaction that finally the nation has received justice,” her spokesman, Abul Kalam Azad, told AFP.

“She believes the executions will go a long way in closing a dark chapter of our history and will help restore the rule of law to our country,” he said, adding that Hasina had spent the night offering prayers of gratitude.

Mujib, as he was known, led Bangladesh to independence in 1971 during a bloody war against Pakistan before he was gunned down at his home along with his wife and three sons on August 15, 1975. The coup leaders were later protected by General Zia Rahman, who assumed the presidency in 1977 and whom Hasina has accused of playing a role in Mujib’s murder.

Hasina and Khaleda Zia, widow of Zia Rahman,

have since cultivated a bitter and debilitating rivalry that has dominated national politics for decades.

Their political antagonism has often spilled onto the streets, and elections in 2007 were cancelled due to inter-party violence during campaigning in which at least 35 people were killed.

The case against Mujib’s assassins was only opened in 1996 when Khaleda Zia was replaced as prime minister by Hasina, who removed legal barriers shielding the accused men.

In 1998, 15 men were found guilty and sentenced to death. Three of them were acquitted however in 2001. Of the other 12, six are in hiding and one is believed to have died in Zimbabwe.

Hasina lost power in 2001 when Khaleda Zia returned to office — and the case was left to languish in the appeal courts. Proceedings were reactivated last year after Hasina won a landslide election against Zia, who has since kept largely out of the public eye. Hasina today attempted to pre-empt any street violence by calling on her supporters to show restraint.

Thousands of people gathered outside the prison in Old Dhaka for the executions and officials from

Hasina’s ruling Awami

party held a procession through the capital.

“We are finally free of stigma and disgrace. At last justice has been meted to the killers of the father of our nation,” said a female Awami supporter in front of the Dhaka house where Mujib was murdered.

A total of 20 people, including domestic staff,

were killed when the group of officers stormed Mujib’s residence during the 1975 coup, but the murder charges that were brought related only to his death.

The executed men’s bodies “have been sent to their village homes across the country with elite Rapid Action Battalion forces escorting the ambulances,” said the deputy national prisons chief, Syed Iftekhar Uddin.

“They were hanged by fellow convicts who have been trained to do execution jobs. They met their relatives one final time a few hours before.” Hasina, who has yet to comment directly on the hangings, is likely to pursue further trials in connection to the 1971 liberation war.

She has sought international assistance on how to bring to court those who collaborated with Pakistan during the conflict.