The Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty for war criminal and Jamaat-e -Islami leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, who had led the systematic killing of intellectuals at the fag end of the 1971 Liberation War as the chief of the notorious al-Badr death squad.
However, the apex court commuted his death penalty to life-term imprisonment for killing people in the Bakchar area of Faridpur in 1971. It also acquitted Mujahid from the charge for abducting and killing Serajuddin Hossain.
His five years imprisonment for confining and torturing Ranjit Nath during the Liberation War, has been upheld.
A four-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha Tuesday dismissed the appeal petition of the Jamaat assistant secretary general.
The SC bench sat at 9am and pronounced the judgement at the beginning of the court’s proceedings, as the verdict delivery was on the top of the Supreme Court’s cause list.
On May 27, the same bench fixed the date after concluding arguments by both defence and state counsels.
During the nine days of hearing on the appeal, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam argued for the state while the BNP chief’s Adviser Khandker Mahbub Hossain and SM Shajahan stood for the Jamaat leader.
Mujahid’s lawyers argued he had not served as the chief of al-Badr. The investigating officer had not found his name on the list of al-Badr, defence lawyer Shishir Monir said.
The attorney general later told reporters that most Islami Chhatra Sangha members had joined al-Badr. Mentioning the speech of the Chhatra Sangha chief in December 1971 and citing newspaper reports and books, he argued Mujahid had led the notorious death squad.
Mujahid led al-Badr, formed with members of Jamaat’s student wing, as an auxiliary force of the Pakistani occupation forces during the war.
On July 17, 2013, Tribunal 2 sentenced the 67-year-old Jamaat secretary general to death after it found him guilty on five out of seven charges brought against him by the prosecution.
He was given death penalty on two charges – for abetting and facilitating the killing of intellectuals and participating in and facilitating the murder of nine Hindu civilians in Faridpur.
