-- SC fixes Nov 2 for hearing review plea

-- SQ Chy's yesterday's plea sent to full bench for hearing

The Supreme Court today fixed November 2 for hearing the petitions filed by war criminals Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury seeking review of its judgement that upheld their death penalties.

Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain, chamber judge of the Appellate Division, fixed the date for hearing the petitions before the full bench of the division.

The chamber came up with the order in response to two government petitions seeking early hearing on the petitions filed by the Jamaat-e-Islami and BNP leaders.

Meanwhile, Chowdhury's petition that urged the SC to record statements from eight persons including five Pakistani nationals was sent to the full bench of the apex court for hearing.

On October 15, the attorney general's office submitted the two petitions to the SC, saying that the review pleas filed under the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act should be heard and disposed of expeditiously as what was said in the apex court judgment regarding war criminal Abdul Quader Mollah's review petition.

On that day, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told The Daily Star that his office would place the applications before the chamber judge of the Appellate Division on October 21 for hearing.

He would pray to the SC to hold the hearings on the review petitions soon after the court reopens on November 1 after its annual 44-day vacation, the attorney general said, adding that a full bench of the Appellate Division would hear the petitions.

Mojaheed and Salauddin on October 14 appealed to the apex court to review its judgments that upheld their death penalty for committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971.

The SC upheld the capital punishment of the convicts in June and July after hearing their pleas against the verdicts of the war crimes tribunal.

The International Crimes Tribunal issued execution warrants for them on October 1, a day after the SC released the full verdicts.