War criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami has appealed to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court against a verdict of the International Crimes Tribunal that sentenced the Jamaat chief to death.
Nizami’s lawyer Tajul Islam filed the petition on Sunday afternoon, seeking acquittal from all war crimes charges.
In the 121-page petition, the defence sought to argue on 168 points.
"The verdict by the tribunal against Motiur Rahman Nizami was not given in a proper way," claimed Tajul Islam in the press conference at the Supreme Court in the afternoon.
He said: "We expect that the top court will acquit Motiur Rahman Nizami."
Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami has been sentenced to death for committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.
The trial against Nizami began on May 28, 2012.
He was arrested on July 29, 2010 for hurting religious sentiments. After three days, he was shown arrested in a war crimes case. The prosecution on December 11, 2012 brought specific charges against him.
As per prosecution documents, Nizami was born in 1943 at Mohammadpur village of Pabna’s Santhia upazila. As the head of East-Pakistan Islami Chhatra Sangha, then student wing of Jamaat, he led the al-Badr militia – a vigilante group blamed for systematic abduction and execution of intellectuals.
He was one of the alleged war criminals arrested in the very beginning of the war crimes trials in 2010.
