The Appellate Division may start today the hearings on appeals of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury filed challenging the death penalty handed down by the war crimes tribunal.
The cases were kept on today’s cause list of the four-member apex court bench headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha.
The defence last week filed a petition seeking six-week adjournment in Mujaheed case citing that chief defence counsel Khandker Mahbub Hossain had been ill. The court is likely to give an order on the petition before starting the hearing.
Mujaheed filed the appeal on August 12, 2013 seeking acquittal from all the charges. He was sentenced to death by the tribunal on July 17 the same year.
Of the five proven charges out of seven brought against him, Mujaheed was given capital punishment in two – for abetting and facilitating killing of intellectuals during the 1971 Liberation War, and participating in and facilitating the murder of nine Hindu civilians in Faridpur.
As a leader of Islami Chhatra Sangha – Jamaat’s then student wing, Mujaheed in 1971 had led a “death squad” named al-Badr.
On the other hand, Salauddin was given death penalty on four out of nine proven charges on October 1, 2013 for committing crimes against humanity and genocide in Chittagong with an aim to annihilate the Hindu community. He filed the appeal on October 29 the same year.