A copy of the top appeals court verdict scrapping death-row war criminal Mohammad Kamaruzzaman’s plea to review his sentence is on its way to the war crimes tribunal.
Published : 08 Apr 2015, 03:25 PM
After the jail authorities receive the copy of the order, they would then complete the formality of asking the convict whether he would seek presidential pardon, the only issue to be resolved before carrying out the execution.
Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha and the three other judges of the bench, which rejected the plea on Monday, signed the 36-page document on Wednesday afternoon.
The other judges are Justice Abdul Wahhab Miah, Justice Hasan Foez Siddique and Justice AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury.
The order reached the Supreme Court’s relevant wing around 3pm, according to Additional Registrar Md Sabbir Foyez.
“The four judges of the Appellate Division signed the verdict. It is being sent to the tribunal, which will then forward it to the district magistrate and the jail authorities,” he told bdnews24.com.
Copies of the order will be also sent to the home and law ministries as well as the office of the attorney general, added the Supreme Court official.
According to the procedures, after the copy reaches the jail, Kamaruzzaman can file for mercy petition to the president admitting to his crimes.
Once the issue of the presidential pardon is resolved or if the Jamaat-e-Islami senior assistant secretary general does not go for that option, the jail authorities will initiate steps to carry out the execution, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam had said earlier.
State Minister for Home Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said on Tuesday the prison authorities were prepared to carry out the verdict.
A senior jail official said that they would ask Kamaruzzaman whether he seek mercy once they got the verdict copy.
If he does, then they would forward the petition to the government.
Otherwise, they will inform the government and wait for further instructions, said the prison official.
Asked whether the convict may seek time to think over the petition, he replied: “We will also inform the government in that case.”
The same procedures were followed when war criminal and Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Molla was executed in December 2013.
Molla did not file mercy petition, the government had said then.
After the Appellate Division dismissed the review plea on Monday, the jail authorities buckled up to carry out the executions.
Kamaruzzaman’s family met him in the jail on Monday night after the prison authorities contacted them.
On May 9, 2013, the International Crimes Tribunal found him guilty in five five of the seven charges levelled against him.
The tribunal ordered death for him on two charges, including the killing of 120 men and raping of women in Sohaghpur Village at Sherpur’s Nalitabarhi on July 25, 1971.
The Supreme Court in its verdict found him unanimously guilty of the charge and sentenced him to death by majority.
But it reduced the death sentence awarded for the other charge to life.
The Appellate Division also upheld the tribunal’s verdict of life in prison and 10-year jail term in two other charges, but acquitted him of another charge.
The war crimes tribunal issued a death warrant for him on Feb 19 this year, a day after the full Supreme Court verdict upholding the death was published.
The execution process stalled following a plea to review the sentence filed on Mar 5, which was turned by the top appeals court on Monday.