Home
+
Published : 11 Aug 2015, 06:45 PM
International Crimes Tribunal-1 on Tuesday sentenced Sirajul Haque to death and Khan Akram Hossain to life in prison for their crimes against humanity during Bangladesh’s liberation war.
In his immediate reaction after the verdict state-appointed defence counsel Mohammad Abul Hasan said, “Prosecution tried to project Siraj Master as deputy commander of Razakars of Bagerhat subdivision, but could not produce any document to substantiate their claim. Yet the court awarded the verdict based on his personal role.”
“We are upset by this judgment. We will appeal against this in the Supreme Court.”
In reply to a query from bdnews24.com Abul Hasan said, “He (Siraj Master) had already given me an instruction to file an appeal if he was convicted. Based on that instruction, I have decided to appeal. I have not spoken to him after the verdict.”
To file an appeal Siraj will now have to appoint a lawyer. Since he had expressed his inability to hire a lawyer, Abul Hasan was assigned to represent him in the tribunal at the government's expense.
Khan Akram’s lawyer M Sarwar Hossain said, “We got justice in two of the three charges. Hopefully, we will get justice even in the third charge in the appeal.”
The tribunal in its verdict said five of the six war crimes charges brought against Siraj were proved beyond doubt.
Akram was found guilty on one among the three charges.
The tribunal said Siraj should be hanged until death or shot to death. On the other hand Akram would have to spend rest of his life in jail.
Another Razakar Abdul Latif Talukdar, 75, was also accused in the case along with Siraj and Akram. But his name was dropped from the case as he died of old age complications on July 27.
