Bangladesh awaits final court decision on Jamaat’s Mir Quasem Ali over 1971 war crimes

Whether war crimes convict Mir Quasem Ali can save his neck or will have to walk the gallows for the atrocities he committed in 1971 will be decided on Tuesday.

The Supreme Court is set to judge the petition filed by the senior Jamaat-e-Islami leader seeking a review of his death sentence.

The matter sits on the top of the day's agenda for the Appellate Division for Tuesday, according to the Supreme Court website.

The five-strong appeals bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha has heard the matter over two days -- on Wednesday and Sunday before scheduling its decision.

The other members of the bench are justices Syed Mahmud Hossain, Hasan Foez Siddique, Mirza Hussain Haider and Mohammad Bazlur Rahman.

An Al-Badr commander in 1971, the death-row convict now lodged at the Kashimpur prison in Gazipur.

The review plea is his last court battle to save himself from the gallows. If the death sentence is upheld, he will have the opportunity to beg the president for his life.

If the 63-year-old Jamaat leader does not seek mercy or is denied pardon, the government will order the jail authorities to hang him.

Mir Quasem was found guilty of committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) and was sentenced to death in 2014.

He had challenged the verdict, but in March this year, the Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence.

On Jun 6, the apex court released the full verdict and sent it to the ICT, which then issued the death warrant before forwarding it to the jail authorities.

Mir Quasem filed a petition on Jun 19 for a review of the top court's verdict.

The State then moved the Supreme Court’s chamber judge to expedite the hearings, and its plea was forwarded to the appeals bench, upon which the court scheduled a hearing for Jul 25.

But it was deferred by a month to Aug 24 after the defence sought time.

On Wednesday morning, the court had adjourned the hearing until Sunday just after Chief Defence Counsel Khandaker Mahbub Hossain started his opening statement.

Khandaker Mahbub on Wednesday pleaded for another month to prepare for the review hearing, but the court did not entertain him.

On Sunday, he finished his statement followed by Attorney General Mahbubey Alam's concluding remarks.

Mir Quasem in the 86-page review petition has specified 14 arguments to back his request for acquittal. His counsel Khandaker Mahbub has said that they ‘hope to get justice’ in the verdict.

But, mentioning past instances, the attorney general said the chances of the court changing the death sentence on a review petition were ‘very slim’.

Mir Quasem was the Al-Badr’s third most important functionary after Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami and Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid.

Bangladesh has executed both Nizami and Mujahid for 1971 genocide and other atrocities.

Mir Quasem, a terror during 1971 in Chittagong, has proved to be a shrewd businessman and politician.

The media tycoon pumped billions into the Jamaat since the mid-1980s to put it on a firm financial footing in Bangladesh.

Police arrested him on Jun 17, 2012 at the 'Naya Diganta' newspaper offices less than two hours after a warrant was out for him. His war crimes trial started on Sep 5 next year.

The ICT had ordered that Mir Quasem be hanged until death for two charges, after unanimously finding him guilty of killing young freedom fighter Jashim Uddin Ahmed along with five others.

He was also found guilty by majority of the murders of Ranjit Das and Tuntun Sen.

Mir Quasem was handed down a total of 72 years in prison on eight other charges.

Before him, the death-row war criminals who had filed review petitions and failed to overturn the sentence include top Jamaat leaders Nizami, Mujahid, Mohammad Kamaruzzaman and Abdul Quader Molla and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury.

All of them were executed after the apex court scrapped their petitions.

The ICT verdict had cited the crimes against humanity Mir Quasem committed as the Chittagong area commander of the Al-Badr, a militia formed with members of the Islami Chhatra Sangha to help the Pakistan Army crush the freedom struggle.

Mir Quasem, founding president of the Islami Chhatra Shibir, has been member of the Jammat's Central Executive Council and the organisation’s fifth most important leader.

The ICT in the verdict had described Dalim Hotel in Chittagong, where pro-liberation people were tortured and killed under his leadership, as the ‘death factory'.

It had observed that Al-Badr members and Pakistani troops would take freedom fighters to Dalim Hotel to torture them until they were dead.