The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court found the offences committed by death row convict Jamaat-e-Islami leader Muhammad Kamaruzzaman more heinous than Abdul Quader Molla, according to the full text of Kamaruzzaman’s appeal verdict that has been released.
Even the Nazis did not perpetrate similar nature of brutal acts, the court said, observing that there was no difference between the conduct of a man and a beast in the perpetration of his crimes.
Upholding the death penalty for Kamaruzzaman given by a tribunal in a war crimes case, the Supreme Court yesterday released the 579-page full verdict.
Chief Justice SK Sinha who was the chief of the bench wrote the main part of the judgement. The other judges are Justice Md Abdul Wahhab Miah, Justice Hasan Foez Siddique and Justice AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury Manik.
The International Crimes Tribunal 2 sentenced Kamaruzzaman to death on May 9, 2013 for committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War. Five out of seven charges were proved by the prosecution in the case.
Kamaruzzaman appealed against the judgement after a month. The Appellate Division upheld his death penalty on November 3 last year.
The Apex Court handed down capital punishment to Kamaruzzaman for the massacre of Sherpur’s Sohagpur village which has come to be widely known as “Bidhoba Palli” or the village of widows, following a mass killing in 1971.
Kamaruzzaman’s conviction on the charge was maintained unanimously but his sentence of death of the said charge has been maintained by majority. Justice Wahhab Miah sentenced Kamruzzaman to suffer life imprisonment instead of death on the charge.
In his judgement, Justice Sinha wrote: “It is on record that in the Sohagpur massacre, almost all male members of the village were brutally killed. The planning and operation was conducted from the al-Badr camp set up at the house of Suren Saha. He [Kamaruzzaman] was directly involved in the implementation of the killing and rape and in pursuance of his planning, the incidents were perpetrated.
“The incidents were so cruel, inhuman and barbarous, the perpetrators not only killed almost all the male members of the village, they also did not spare the widows of the victims, who were also ravished. Even the women who fled away sensing the enormity of the crime and returned back 2/3 days after the incidents in their houses were also not spared.
“While narrating the horrific incident of killing of her husband and causing violence to her after the killing, the 12th prosecution witness was kept in the convulsive gasps under mental distress. The tribunal noted down the demeanour while recording her statement. She could not control her emotion even after 40 years. How gruesome incident it was! None can imagine other than the one who has experienced the traumatic incidents.”
The chief justice also said Kamaruzzaman deserved no sympathy for such behavioural pattern of the criminal acts.
“We find no difference between the conduct of a man and a beast in the perpetration of these crimes.
“Neither in the tribunal nor before this [Appellate] Division any argument was made on behalf of the accused to take a lenient view if he was found guilty of the charge. Even under the general law, when a murder is perpetrated in cold-blooded and calculated manner, the courts normally award a sentence of death on the reasoning that such type of incident shocks the conscience of the society.”
Justice Sinha said: “It has been revealed from the documentary evidence and oral evidence, which described the gruesome manner of killing as a scene resembling that of the Hindu spring festival, ‘the Holy,’ where the crowd is immersed in red coloured water. The accused and his force killed one by one persons of the village and this killing spree continued for six hours, and bathed with their blood. The killing spree was such as if they were hunting birds and animals.
“We cannot imagine how the accused being a Bangalee citizen could involve in such gruesome inhuman acts and from such conduct, he does not deserve any compassionate consideration on the question of sentence. The proper and appropriate sentence for his crimes is the extreme one.”
He said Kamaruzzaman had directly participated in these barbarous acts, who were comparable with none. “Even Nazis did not perpetrate similar nature of brutal acts.”
The judge mentioned that Kamaruzzaman had not expressed any “repentance of his criminal acts” at any stage of the proceedings for his role rather showed vaunter for his conducts and acts. He led the armed groups to perpetrate the incidents of rampant killing and rape.
“The very nature of the incidents proved beyond doubt that the killing was perpetrated systematically in furtherance of a pre-concert plan and design upon civilian population.
“The al-Badr force organised by the accused was termed as ‘Fascist’ force, that is, this force was compared with Mussolini’s regime in Italy. The nature of the incident orchestrated by the accused with his force has all trappings of ‘Genocide.’
“The incidents of murder and rape perpetrated at Sohagpur village are much heinous than that of Abdul Quader Molla.
“Therefore, it is the most appropriate case in which a sentence of death is the only sentence, which will be just and proper proportionate to the gravity of the crime. The Tribunal is thus justified in awarding him death sentence.”
In his judgement, Justice Hasan Foez said it was evident that the appellant [Kamaruzzaman] had led the local al-Badr Bahini, a killing squad to thwart the birth of Bangladesh as an independent nation in the globe.
“Does it not depict the extreme depravity of the appellant? In our view it does.
“Thousands of freedom fighters sacrificed their lives to resist such brutalities but the appellant helped those brutes and killed his own countrymen and freedom fighters along with them. The murders in the village Sohagpur were committed for a motive which evinces total depravity and those were committed in course of betrayal of the motherland.
“If we look into the manner in which the crime was committed, the weapon used, the brutality of the crime, number of persons murdered, the helplessness of the victims, the unbearable pains and sufferings of the raped women, widows and their children, we cannot come to any other conclusion except one, the Tribunal arrived at to award the capital sentence to the appellant. The barbaric, gruesome and heinous type of crime which the appellant and others committed is a revolt against the society and an affront to human dignity. It is the duty of the court to impose a proper punishment depending upon the degree of criminality.”
Justice Shamsuddin said: “We must not be over compassionate when sentencing a felon of the appellant’s type, but must think of the trail of horror his acts left behind for successive of generations. We must be firm enough to pass extreme sentence if that be proportionate to the gravity of the offence.”
He said it was a “pathetic episode” of the country’s history that such a “human monster” was allowed to escape the regiour of justice for so many decades, for which blames fall squarely upon “those who usurped power unconstitutionally for many years after killing the Founding Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and tried to put the clock back to pre 1971 state.
“I remain indubitably convinced that the interest of justice can only be met if this appellant is shown the gallows.”
AG: No bar to fix a date
The government can now start process for executing Kamaruzzaman as the Supreme Court released the full judgement upholding the death penalty, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said yesterday.
“There is no legal bar for the government to fix a date for the execution of the Jamaat assistant secretary general,” he told the reporters at his office.
He, however, said the execution process would be suspended “if the convict files a review petition with the apex court challenging his death penalty.”
Now, the Supreme Court would send its full judgement to the International Crimes Tribunal 2, Mahbubey said.
After receiving the judgement, the tribunal would issue death warrant against Kamaruzzaman and then the jail authorities would execute him, he added. From yesterday, the Jamaat leader would get 15 days for filing the review petition.
The Appellate Division might take maximum a week for hearing and disposing of the petition.
“If it dismisses the review petition, Kamaruzzaman can seek presidential mercy to save his neck,” the top law officer of the state said.
“If not, he will be executed within a day or two,” he said, expressing hope that all the procedures regarding his execution might be finished in the next three to four weeks.
Mustafizur Rahman, registrar of the International Crimes Tribunal, told reporters that the copy of the judgement had reached the tribunal. “It will be place before the tribunal 2 on time.”
Neaser Alam, jailer of the Dhaka Central Jail, told the Dhaka tribune: “We have not received any paper yet. We will start our work after receiving it.”
Md Shishir Monir, lawyer for Kamruzzaman, told the Dhaka Tribune: “According to the review petition judgement of Abdul Quader Molla, the 15-day count will start from either receiving of the certified copy of the judgement or when the judgement reaches the convict.
“We will file the review petition after receiving the certified copy.”
