The Appellate Division will hear on Tuesday petitions of war criminals Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid to review their death sentences.
Published : 16 Nov 2015, 08:07 PM
The Supreme Court website shows the appeals are on Tuesday’s list of business agenda of the full bench headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha.
The bench on Nov 2 set Nov 17 to hear the review petitions of former BNP MP Chowdhury and its key ally Jamaat-e-Islami’s Secretary General Mujahid.
Mujahid’s petition is on second on the top appeals court’s cause list while Chowdhury’s petition is third.
Besides these petitions, the appeal (partly heard) of Jamaat chief Matiur Rahman Nizami against his death sentence by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) is fourth on the Appellate Division’s cause list.
On Monday, the High Court dropped a writ petition of Salauddin Quader’s wife Farhat Quader Chowdhury challenging the constitution of the war crimes tribunal from its cause list.
Mujahid, who was the social welfare minister in Khaleda Zia’s coalition Cabinet, had planned and executed mass murders including those of intellectuals, scientists, academics and journalists during the Liberation War.
The International Crimes Tribunal on Jul 17, 2013, sentenced him to death for the massacre of intellectuals and his involvement in the murder and torture of Hindus in 1971.
Besides the chief justice, the other members of the bench that will hear the petitions are Justice Nazmun Ara Sultana, Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain, and Justice Hasan Foez Siddique.
It also rejected another plea by Mujahid seeking order to let his junior counsels help the senior lawyer at the hearing.
The bench upheld Mujahid’s death sentence on June 16 and Chowdhury’s on July 29.
The full appeals verdicts were published on Sep 30.
The special court then sent the death warrants to the jail authorities who read those to the convicts on Oct 1.
Chowdhury is in Kashimpur Jail and Mujahid in Dhaka Central Jail.
The last legal hope for the duo to evade execution rests on the review petitions.
The court took only a day to hear and reject review petitions of war criminals Jamaat assistant secretaries general Abdul Quader Molla and Mohammad Kamaruzzaman.
They did not seek president’s pardon and were eventually hanged.
Supreme Court Bar Association President Khandaker Mahbub Hossain is the chief counsel for both Chowdhury and Mujahid.
Chittagong braces for extra security
Security in Chittagong has been heightened ahead of the hearing of the review petitions of Salauddin Quader and Mujahid.
Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) Additional Commissioner Debdas Bhattacharya said check posts had been set up at key points of the city.
CMP had already raised the number of check posts after Jamaat’s student affiliate Islami Chhatra Shibir’s plan to attack oil refineries was revealed last month.
Salauddin Quader was a lawmaker from Chittagong’s Fatikchharhi in the ninth Parliament.
After the verdicts of war criminal Jamaat leaders Delwar Hossain Sayedee, Quader Molla and Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, several policemen were killed in clashes with activists of Jamaat and Shibir in the port city.