War crimes convict Ali Ahsan Md Mujahid’s appeal verdict on Jun 16

The verdict on an appeal by Jamaat-e-Islami leader Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid against his death sentence awarded by a war crimes tribunal will be out on June 16.

A four-strong appeals bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha set the date on Wednesday after concluding the hearing.

On July 17, 2013, the second war crimes tribunal sentenced the Jamaat secretary general to death after finding him guilty of five of the seven war crime charges levelled against him.

The former Al-Badr commander moved the Appellate Division on Aug 11 the same year,
challenging the verdict that condemned him to be ‘hanged by the neck’.

He was found guilty of unleashing his ruthless militia on unarmed intellectuals and of
mass murders he had planned and executed during Bangladesh’s Liberation War in
1971.

The hearing on Mujhahid’s appeal was held on nine days. Attorney General Mahbubey Alam argued for the state while Khandker Mahbub Hossain and SM Shahjahan represented the defence.

The Supreme Court has so far issued verdicts in three war crimes cases. Jamaat assistant
secretaries general Abdul Qauder Molla and Mohammad Kamaruzzaman were sent to
the gallows after it  upheld the death sentences awarded to them for crimes against humanity.

But it reduced punishment for top Jamaat leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee from death to life imprisonment. The full copy of Sayedee’s appellate verdict was yet to be released.

Jamaat kingpin Ghulam Azam was sentenced to die in prison after the 91-year-old was found guilty by the war crimes tribunal. 

His appeal was dismissed after his death in October 2014.

The appeal by former BNP minister Abdul Alim was also disposed of upon his death.