The Supreme Court will deliver its verdict today on the review petition filed by convicted war criminal Muhammad Kamaruzzaman against its verdict that upheld his death penalty.
A four-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice SK Sinha fixed the date yesterday after hearing arguments on the review petition, filed on March 5.
Chief defence counsel Khandker Mahbub Hossain, also an adviser to the BNP chief, prayed to the court to commute his punishment. On the other hand, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam urged the court to uphold the death penalty.
If his review petition is rejected, Jamaat-e-Islami Senior Assistant Secretary General Kamaruzzaman can file a mercy petition with President Md Abdul Hamid admitting the crimes. He is the second war crimes convict to file a review petition with the top court. Another Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Molla was executed on December 12, 2013.
The International Crimes Tribunal 2 sentenced the al-Badr leader to death on May 9, 2013 for committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War. He was awarded the sentence for killing 144 villagers at Sohagpur village in Sherpur, now known as “Bidhoba Palli,” or the village of widows.
The Appellate Division upheld the death penalty on November 3 last year and Kamaruzzaman filed the review petition on March 5. The tribunal issued a death warrant for him after the Appellate Division published the full verdict.
Mahbub said though the apex court had awarded death sentence for Sohagpur killing upon accounts of three witnesses, “none of them were eye witnesses” and that their accounts had contradictions.
Mentioning a book named “Mohila Muktijoddha,” he said witness Korfuli Bewa in her interview had not mentioned about Kamaruzzaman’s presence at the village during the killing.
He also stated that the Appellate Division had commuted the death penalty to life-term on the charge of abduction and killing of Golam Mostafa.
The counsel said apart from the Nuremberg and Tokyo war trials, there was no example of death penalty in rest of the five other trails.
Earlier, the hearing was deferred twice as Mahbub filed time petitions. He was a prosecutor of the trial of collaborators of the Pakistani Army in 1972.
After the court proceedings, the attorney general dismissed the defence arguments by saying that Kamaruzzaman’s involvement in the crimes had been established by the tribunal and the Appellate Division. “If we show mercy to a proven war criminal, we will be liable to the history.”