The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court has fixed January 6 for delivering its verdict on an appeal filed by war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami, challenging his death penalty.
The four-member bench of the Appellate Division led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha fixed the date on Tuesday morning.
The International Crimes Tribunal-1 on October 29, 2014 awarded Nizami the death penalty on four charges of war crimes, including murdering intellectuals, life imprisonment on four other charges.
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Nizami filed appeal with the SC against the tribunal verdict on November 23, 2014.
The trial against Nizami began on May 28, 2012.
He was arrested on July 29, 2010 on charges of hurting religious sentiments. After three days, he was shown arrested in a war crimes case.
On December 11, 2012 the prosecution brought 16 charges of crimes against humanity including conspiracy, planning, complicity, incitement and active participation against the Jamaat leader.
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The charges against him included killing of 70 people and torching 72 houses in December 1971 at Brishalika village in Pabna’s Bera upazila; murdering 450 people in Demra and Baushia villages; killing of several people in front of a Hindu temple at Kormocha village of Santhia upazila as well as looting, rape and abduction.
As the head of East-Pakistan Islami Chhatra Sangha, then student wing of Jamaat, he led al-Badr group – a para militia force blamed for the systematic abduction and killing of intellectuals – until September, 1971.