The death warrants for convicted war criminals Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid have been issued and sent to the prison authorities.
Published : 01 Oct 2015, 04:08 PM
The warrants issued by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) on Thursday morning were also read out to both convicts later in the day.
The Supreme Court published the full verdicts on Wednesday.
The death warrants have set the process in motion for the execution of the two, guilty of crimes against humanities committed during Bangladesh’s War of Independence in 1971.
“We have completed all formalities and handed over the death warrants. It’s now the prison authorities’ jurisdiction,” said ICT Registrar Shahidul Islam.
Wrapped in a red cloth, the warrants were given to the Dhaka Central Jail’s superintendent by an ICT team led by its Senior Research Officer Parvez Ahmed.
The warrants were signed by the three-member ICT led by Justice Anwarul Haque. The other two members are Justice Md Shahinur Islam and Justice Md Shohrowardi.
Copies of the warrants were also sent to the home ministry, and the offices of Dhaka’s district magistrate and deputy commissioner.
Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Mujahid is in the Dhaka Central Jail while BNP Standing Committee member Chowdhury is in Dhaka Central Jail-1 in Gazipur’s Kashimpur.
As per the formalities, the warrant for Mujahid, who was the former commander of Al-Badr during the war, was read out to him after they received it Thursday afternoon, said Superintendent Md Jahangir Kabir.
The warrant was read out to Chowdhury after the Kashimpur jail authorities received it around 9pm, Superintendent Subrata Kumar Bala told bdnews24.com.
Both convicts now have the option to file a petition for review of the verdict within 15 days.
The counting of the period starts from the day the defence gets the copy of the appeal verdict, or the death warrant is read out to the convict, whichever happens first.
According to the law, the government will start the process of execution through the jail authorities after the reading out of the death warrant.
But the convict cannot be executed before the resolution of the review petition, if filed.
He said they would file review petitions and that the chief prosecutor had already been informed about it through a notice.
Once their review petitions are resolved and if their death sentences are upheld, the war crimes convicts can seek mercy from the president and meet family members.
If they are denied pardon or if they decline to appeal, the government will execute the convicts through the jail authorities as per law.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal has said that the government would follow the law in going ahead with the procedures.
Mujahid, a minister in Khaleda Zia’s coalition Cabinet, planned and executed mass murders including those of intellectuals, scientists, academics and journalists in 1971.
On Jul 17, 2013, the ICT ordered death sentence for him after he was proven guilty of mass killings and torture of Hindus during the Liberation War.
He filed an appeal against the verdict, but the Supreme Court upheld death for him.
Former BNP MP Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, who had also served as a minister during HM Ershad’s regime, was sentenced to death by the tribunal on Oct 1, 2013.
The verdict depicted how he had led the Pakistani army to murder and loot in 1971, and how he had abducted freedom fighters and pro-liberation people, took them to his hilltop residence in Chittagong, and tortured them.
After Chowdhury and Mujahid had challenged the sentences, Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha-headed four-member Appellate bench on Jun 16 gave its verdict against Mujahid.
The same bench delivered the verdict on Chowdhury’s appeal against the maximum punishment on Jul 29.
The two full verdicts were published on Wednesday after the judges signed them.
Including these two, so far five final verdicts on appeals against the tribunal’s judgments have been delivered.
Jamaat Assistant Secretary General Abdul Quader Molla was executed on Dec 12, 2013, after the Appellate Division in its first verdict, delivered on Sep 17 same year, upheld the death sentence he had challenged.
A year later, the Appellate Division in the second verdict reduced Jamaat’s number two Delwar Hossain Sayedee’s sentence to life in prison.
But that verdict’s review petition has not been resolved until now as the full verdict is yet to be published.
Another Assistant Secretary General of Jamaat, Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, was hanged on Apr 11 this year after the apex court delivered its third verdict on Nov 3, 2013.
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