Supreme Court to fix war criminal Mir Qausem's appeal hearing on Wednesday

The Supreme Court will announce on Wednesday when it will start hearing on the appeal of condemned war criminal Mir Quasem Ali.

Court CorrespondentSupreme bdnews24.com
Published : 5 Jan 2016, 07:20 AM
Updated : 5 Jan 2016, 07:47 AM

A four-member Appellate Division bench headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha on Tuesday fixed the date.

Additional Attorney General Murad Reza has told the court that both sides have already submitted summaries of their arguments in the appeal.

On wanting to know who will represent Mir Quasem, the court has been told by Joynal Abedin Tuhin, advocate on record of the appeal, that that is yet to be finalized.

The judges have asked the appellant to let the court know about it on Wednesday.

The other three members of the bench are justices Nazmun Ara Sultana, Syed Mahmud Hossain and Hazan Foyez Siddiqui.

On Nov 2, 2014, the International Crimes Tribunal handed down capital punishment to Mir Quasem, a central executive council member of the Jamaat-e-Islami, for his crimes against humanity during the 1971 War of Liberation.

After unanimously finding him guilty of killing young freedom fighter ‘Jashim’ and seven others, the judges ordered that the founding president of Islami Chhatra Shibir be hanged until death for two charges.

On Nov 30, he filed an appeal petition, seeking that the order be overturned.

Born in Manikganj's Harirampur, he was better known as 'Mintu' to the people of Chittagong during the war.

Mir Quasem was a first-year student of physics at Chittagong College in 1971 and was president of the Islami Chhatra Sangha’s unit there.

He was elected a member of the Pakistan Chhatra Sangha’s provincial working council on Nov 6 and became the general secretary of its East Pakistan wing during the Liberation War.

As a former commander of Al-Badr, a ‘killing squad’ formed with members of a Peace Committee and Islami Chhatra Sangha to assist Pakistani occupation forces, he is accused of playing a leading role in the murder, massacre, rape and loot that was rampant in Chittagong during that time.

There are also allegations that he ordered the massacre and murders at the Razakar camps there.

The Al-Badr in Chittagong, under his leadership, had set up camps for ‘torture and killings’ at Dalim Hotel in Andarkilla, Dowsta Mohammad Panjabee Building - a leather depot at Asadganj, and Salma Manjil at Panchlaish, it is said.

When Chhatra Sangha rechristened itself as Islami Chhatra Shibir following the 1975 political changeover, Mir Quasem became its founding president on Feb 6, 1977.

He quickly rose in the Jamaat and eventually became its financial backbone .

He was arrested on June 17, 2012 and his trial began on Sep 5 the next year.

Nizami’s is the sixth one pending an appeal verdict since the much awaited war crimes trial began in 2010.

Earlier in four appeal judgments, three Jamaat leaders -- Quader Mollah, Muhammad Kamaruzzaman and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid -- and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury were executed for war crimes.

In another verdict, the apex court commuted Jamaat Nayeb-e-Amir Delawar Hossain Sayedee’s death sentence to life term imprisonment. The review of the judgment is yet to be disposed of.

Apart from them, Ghulam Azam who was the chief of Jamaat in 1971 and former BNP minister Abdul Alim died while their appeal proceedings were going on.