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Published : 31 Aug 2016, 11:29 AM
Presidential mercy left for Mir Quasem
Mir Quasem fails to dodge death penalty
Prashanta Kumar Banik, Superintendent of Central Jail-2 at Gazipur's Kashimpur, told bdnews24.com that they received the copy of the Supreme Court's review verdict and order around 1am on Wednesday.
They were read out to Mir Quasem in his condemned cell around 7:30am in the morning, he said.
"He (Quasem) has been informed formally of the court's verdict. He has sought time to decide on whether he would file the mercy petition," said Banik.
The Appellate Division verdict delivered on Tuesday cleared the way for execution of the 63-year-old Jamaat-e-Islami financier.
Losing the last legal battle at the top appeals court has left the pro-Pakistan Al-Badr militia commander with one last option - seeking pardon from the president by repenting for his crimes to dodge the hangman's noose.
The government will start the process to execute the death sentence if the president rejects the petition or if the convict does not seek clemency.
Mir Quasem's family will also be called to see him one last time before his hanging.
The apex court had issued the appeal verdict on Mar 8 upholding the International Crimes Tribunal's (ICT) Nov 2, 2014, verdict that sentenced him to death for the abduction, torture and killing of teenage freedom fighter Jashim Uddin Ahmed during the 1971 Liberation War.
The same appeals bench on Tuesday morning also dismissed Mir Quasem's petition to review the appeal verdict.
The full verdict was published later in the afternoon. Then it was sent to Kashimpur prison via the ICT same night.
The death sentence charge
Charge No. 11
Mir Quasem ordered the killing of freedom fighter Jashim Uddin on Nov 8, 1971, after abducting and torturing him at Chittagong's Dalim Hotel. The young fighter’s body, along with those of five other unknown people, was thrown into the Karnaphuli River.
The founding president of the Islami Chhatra Shibir, Mir Quasem has been a member of the Jamaat's Central Executive Council since 1985 and played an important role in the party that violently opposed Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan in 1971.
The wartime 'terror of Chittagong' had rapidly risen through the ranks and boosted the Jamaat's financial and political fortunes with extraordinary shrewdness since the mid-1980s.
Mir Quasem was arrested on June 17, 2013, from the office of newspaper Naya Diganta less than two hours after the war crimes tribunal issued a warrant for his arrest.
His trial started from Sep 5 next year.
The ‘Khan Saheb’ of Chittagong's Dalim Hotel, Mir Quasem was the general secretary of the erstwhile Islami Chhatra Sangha during the war.
Local members of Al-Badr had occupied ‘Mohamaya Bhaban’ at the port city’s Andrrkilla from a Hindu family during the war and established their torture camp renaming it as ‘Dalim Hotel’.
The ICT in its verdict had described Dalim Hotel, where pro-liberation people were tortured and killed under the leadership of Mir Quasem, as a ‘death factory'.
