The jail authorities yesterday gave condemned Jamaat leader Muhammad Kamaruzzaman permission to talk to his lawyers over seeking presidential clemency, the last option for the war crimes convict to save his life.

The death row convict desired to speak to his counsels after the Dhaka Central Jail authorities communicated to him in the evening the Supreme Court verdict that dismissed his review petition against the death penalty.

As fixed by the prison authorities, five counsels for the Jamaat leader will meet him at the jail at 11:00am today, Shishir Manir, one of his lawyers, told this correspondent last night.

Around 3:00pm, the SC released the full text of the verdict that rejected the review petition of Kamaruzzaman, assistant secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami.

He filed the petition on March 5 against the apex court's judgment that upheld his capital punishment. On Monday, a four-member SC bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha dismissed the review petition.

Kamaruzzaman, key organiser of infamous Al-Badr force in greater Mymensingh in 1971, was sentenced to death by the International Crimes Tribunal-2 in May 2013 for committing crimes against humanity, including mass killings in Sohagpur of Sherpur, during the Liberation War.

The ICT registrar's office received a copy of the 36-page SC verdict around 4:30pm. Tribunal officials took it to the central jail authorities around 5:45pm.

Farman Ali, senior jail superintendent of the central jail, read out the verdict to Kamaruzzaman, and wanted to know whether he would seek mercy from the president, said jail sources.

The Jamaat leader then told the prison official that he would decide on the matter after consulting his counsels, they said.