Mir Quasem review petition hearing July 25

The Supreme Court yesterday fixed July 25 for the hearing of a petition filed by war criminal Mir Quasem Ali seeking review of its judgement that had upheld his death penalty.

Chamber judge of the Appellate Division of the SC Justice Hasan Foez Siddique fixed the date following a government petition that prayed for a date for the hearing on the review petition.

On June 19, Quasem submitted the petition to the apex court through his lawyers seeking review of its verdict that had upheld his death penalty for crimes committed by him during the country's Liberation War in 1971.

In the petition, the Jamaat-e-Islami leader prayed to the SC to acquit him of all seven charges on which he was found guilty.

In the 86-page petition, 14 grounds have been mentioned based on which the SC may consider the review petition.

The International Crimes Tribunal on June 6 issued a death warrant for Quasem Ali hours after the SC had released the full text of its verdict upholding his death penalty.

On November 2, 2014, the ICT-2 handed down capital punishment on 63-year-old Quasem, chief of Chittagong Al-Badr force, for committing crimes against humanity in 1971.

On March 8 this year, the Appellate Division upheld the ICT-2 verdict.

Quasem is considered by many as the main financier of the anti-liberation party. He allegedly paid $25 million to an American lobbyist firm to carry out a smear campaign to make the war crimes trial controversial, the then law minister Shafique Ahmed told parliament on April 28, 2013.

The death row war criminal was shifted to the Dhaka Central Jail from Kashimpur prison of Gazipur on June 20.