Home
+
Published : 28 Feb 2013, 08:17 AM
Sayedee was pronounced guilty Thursday for eight charges out of 20 levelled against him.
The three-member International Crimes Tribunal – 1, set up to deal with the crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War, sentenced him to death for two charges of murder in a courtroom packed with journalists, relatives of the accused and observers.
When asked whether the defence will appeal, chief Jamaat defence counsel Abdur Razzaq said, “Most certainly.”
He told bdnews24.com the Jamaat leader should have been acquitted. “The government has managed to secure this death sentence with false witnesses.”
When asked about the two charges of murder, one of Bisha Bali and another of killing Ibrahim Kutti, Razzaq said that neither of the charges had any substance.
The chief defence counsel said, “Bisha Bali’s brother Shukho Ranjan had agreed to come as a defence witness and tell the tribunal that Sayedee was not involved in his brother’s murder, but he was abducted from the court premises.”
Also an Assistant Secretary General of Jamaat, Razzaq said the charges were trumped up.
As for the murder of Ibrahim Kutti, the senior lawyer said, Kutti’s wife had in fact filed a murder case in 1973 where she apparently accused people other than Sayedee for the killing.
“Sayedee was not even involved in the incident, let alone murder.”
The judgement concluded saying that the convict was at liberty to appeal to the “Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh against the order of conviction and sentence within 30 days from the date of passing the order of sentence as per provisions of Section 21 of the Act”.
