Updated

Bangladesh's Supreme Court has upheld death sentences given to two influential opposition leaders who were convicted of war crimes during the country's 1971 independence war against Pakistan.

Attorney General Mahbubey Alam says the court's rejection Wednesday of the men's appeals clears the way for them to be hanged unless they seek and get presidential clemency.

A special war tribunal convicted Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid of Jamaat-e-Islami in 2013 of several charges, including genocide and rape during the war.

More than 15 people, mostly leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, have been convicted of war crimes as part of a series of decisions by two separate tribunals set up by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2010.