War criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami’s lawyers have urged the Supreme Court to commute his death sentence to life term imprisonment “if he is found guilty” of crimes against humanity.
Prosecution thinks that kind of a submission is equal to confessing guilt, although defence claimed that it was not.
Nizami’s counsel Khandaker Mahbub Hossain made the appeal to the Appellate Division yesterday, after the apex court concluded hearing the arguments of defence on the appeal filed by the Jamaat-e-Islami chief challenging the death penalty handed down to him by the war crimes tribunal.
During submission, Khandaker Mahbub Hossain said his client had been shown involved with some incidents in Pabna, but there had been no eyewitnesses.
Moreover, Nizami had been shown as the chief of al-Badr because he was then the chief of Chhatra Sangha, now known by the name Chhatra Shibir. But the said crimes took place when Nizami was no longer with al-Badr.
The counsel also prayed to the apex court to acquit the death row convict of all the charges saying he was not directly involved in any of the crimes.
Nizami was a student in 1971 and was therefore not capable of showing Pakistan army the way to go to places where the offences took place, Mahbub argued.
“There is no credibility of those depositions and charges,” he said.
Even then, if the court, believing those witness accounts, found 72-year-old Nizami guilty, then it should commute his death sentence to life considering his age and good behaviour, the defence counsel said.
Mahbub and SM Shahjahan, assisted by Shishir Manir, comprised defence while Attorney General Mahbubey Alam stood for the state.
After the hearing session, Mahbubey told reporters: “From their [defence’s] submission, it appears that for the first time, the lawyers of a convicted Jamaat leader have confessed to [their client’s] crimes committed during the 1971 Liberation War and appealed for only commuting the death sentence.
“It is a historical fact that people were killed and the Jamaat leader facilitated those. Motiur Rahman Nizami supported that out of conviction,” the chief state lawyer said.
In criminal cases, convicts present alternate arguments and deny charges at first but they confess if they want punishments to be commuted, the attorney general said.
Later, journalists asked Khandakar Mahbub Hossain whether they had really admitted Nizami’s guilt. In reply, he said they were not out of their minds.
“We saw the attorney general’s speech on television. It was irresponsible and [made out of a] lack of knowledge about criminal law. We only told the court that if it thinks any of the charges are proved, our client should get lighter a punishment,” he said.
At the end of ninth day’s hearing yesterday which began on September 9, the four-member bench of the Appellate Division led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha fixed December 7 for resuming hearing on the appeal. On that day, the bench will hear the prosecution’s arguments.
The International Crimes Tribunal sentenced Nizami to death on October 29, 2014 after he was found guilty in eight of the 16 charges brought against him.
While delivering verdict, the tribunal noted that the crimes he had committed intended to “demean the human civilisation.”
“No punishment other than death [for Nizami] will be equal to the horrendous crimes for which the accused has been found guilty beyond reasonable doubt,” the tribunal said.
Police arrested Nizami on June 29, 2010 in a criminal case and later showed him arrested in war crimes cases on August 2, 2010.