Bangladeshi cabinet Monday approved the draft of an election law in an apparent move to restrict war criminals from contesting in the parliament polls slated for early 2014.

Spokesman Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan told reporters that the draft of the election law, which was approved in the cabinet meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair, will be placed before the parliament for approval.

If approved by the parliament, Cabinet Secretary Bhuiyan said, the "Representation of the People (amendment) Act-2013" will bar a person who is convicted under International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973, from participating in any national election.

Spokesmen from the main opposition parties were not immediately available for comments.

After returning to power in January 2009, Prime Minister Hasina, daughter of Bangladesh's independence hero Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, established the first tribunal in March 2010, almost 40 years after the 1971 fight for independence from Pakistan, to castigate those accused of committing crimes against humanity during the nine-month war.

Five current and former leaders of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islmair party have already been sentenced to either death or life imprisonment for crimes against humanity linked to the country's war of independence.

Apart from several other Jamaat senior officials, two leaders of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) are also standing trial on charges of crimes against humanity.

Both BNP and Jamaat, which dismissed the tribunals as a government "show trial" without the oversight or involvement of the United Nations, have been waging protests, demanding the restoration of the non-party caretaker system to oversee the next general elections. Endi

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