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Published : 30 Sep 2015, 04:08 PM
“The full verdicts have been published. We will try to send it to the International Crimes Tribunal today. It will be also posted on the Supreme Court’s website,” the court’s Registrar General Syed Aminul Islam told bdnews24.com on Wednesday.
By afternoon, both verdicts were published on the Supreme Court website.
The tribunal’s Registrar Shahidul Alam later at night confirmed bdnews24.com of receiving the copies of the full verdicts.
He said, “I’ve received the copies of both verdicts. These will be presented before the tribunal tomorrow (Thursday).”
“The attested copies of the verdicts will be sent to the authorities of the prisons and the district magistrate tomorrow. The home ministry will be informed too,” he added.
The war crimes tribunal had sentenced both of them to death earlier this year after finding them guilty of crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.
The Supreme Court later upheld both sentences.
Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha-headed four-member Appellate bench on Jun 16 gave its verdict on Mujahid, who was the former commander of Al-Badr, the militia raised by Pakistan to crush the Bengali struggle for independence.
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.
The three other members of the bench were Justice Nazmun Ara Sultana, Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain and Justice Hasan Foez Siddique.
Justice Siddique wrote the 191-page Mujahid's verdict while Chief Justice Sinha wrote the 217-page verdict of Chowdhury. Other members of the bench gave their consent.
After the verdicts were published, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said, “We’ve been eagerly waiting for these two verdicts. Our long wait has ended today.”
Chowdhury and Mujahid, however, have a chance to file a review petition within 15 days from the publication of full verdict.
The government will begin the execution processes after the tribunal receives the verdict’s copy and issues the death warrant.
After getting the warrant, the jail authorities will read it out to the convicts.
Once their review petitions are resolved and if their death sentences are upheld, the war crimes convicts will have the opportunity to 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.
Sixty-seven year old Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid is currently in Dhaka Central Jail and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury in Kashimpur jail.
With the publishing of these two full verdicts on Wednesday, so far five final verdicts on appeals against the tribunal’s judgment have been delivered.
Jamaat Assistant Secretary General Abdul Quader Molla was executed on Dec 12, 2013, after the Appellate Division in its first verdict given 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 after the apex court delivered its third verdict on Nov 3, 2013.
The two verdicts
Mujahid, the social welfare minister in Khaleda Zia’s BNP-Jamaat coalition Cabinet, planned and executed mass murders including those of intellectuals, scientists, academics and journalists in 1971.
The International Crimes Tribunal on Jul 17, 2013, ordered him to walk the gallows for the massacre of the intellectuals and involvement in the murder and torture of Hindus during the War of Independence.
Out of the seven charges levelled against him, the tribunal had found him guilty on five counts. He was given the death penalty in the first, sixth and seventh charges.
The Jamaat secretary general got death for the first of the seven charges – abduction and murder of journalist Sirajuddin Hossain — which was “merged” with the sixth charge related to the murder of intellectuals.
The tribunal also had sentenced him to death for the seventh charge – murder and torture of Hindus – as well. The Appellate Division verdict commuted it to life in prison.
Mujahid got life in prison for the fifth charge – confinement and torture of composer Altaf Mahmud, Jahir Uddin Jalal alias ‘Bichchhu Jalal’, Shafi Imam Rumi, Badiuzzaman, Abdul Halim Chowdhury Jewel and Magfar Ahmed Chowdhury Azad at an old MP Hostel in Dhaka’s Nakhalpara area.
Everyone, except Jalal, was killed. The Supreme Court upheld the war crimes tribunal’s verdict on this charge.
The war crimes tribunal sentenced Salauddin Quader Chowdhury to death on Oct 1, 2013.
He was given the capital punishment for killing Kundeshwari Oushadhalaya owner and philanthropist Nutan Chandra Singha, genocide of Hindus at Sultanpur and Unsattar Parha and abducting and murdering a Hathazari Awami League leader and his son Sheikh Alamgir.
The verdict depicted how Chowdhury had led Pakistani army to murder, loot during 1971 and how he had abducted freedom fighters and supporters of independence, took them to his hilltop residence at Goods Hill in Chittagong and tortured them.
Chowdhury is the second former minister whose death sentence was upheld by the Appellate Division after Mujahid.
He was found guilty in nine out of the 23 charges levelled against him by the prosecution.
He was sentenced to death over four charges and jailed for different terms over the five others.
In its final verdict on his appeal against the death penalty, the apex court acquitted him of one of the nine charges and upheld the sentences awarded by the tribunal in the remaining eight charges.
The six-time MP from Chittagong got the capital punishment for each of the four charges — 3, 5, 6 and 8 — that include murder, genocide and murder after abduction.
The BNP Standing Committee member was also given 20 years in prison for three charges – 2, 4, and 7 - each which include murder, complicity in genocide, loot, arson and deportation; and five years each for another two charges – 17 and 18, which include abduction and torture.
The Appellate Division acquitted him on the 7th charge.
