War crimes: SC likely to hear Qaiser, Azharul’s appeals tomorrow

The Supreme Court is set to hear appeals of two death row war crimes convicts tomorrow.

The appeals were filed by two convicted war criminals -- former Jatiya Party minister Syed Mohammad Qaisar and Jamaat-e-Islami leader ATM Azharul Islam -- challenging the war crime tribunal verdict against them.

A three-member bench of the Appellate Division, headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, is likely to pass an order on the appeals tomorrow, according to the cause list uploaded on the SC website.

Syed Mohammad Qaisar, former state minister for agriculture during the HM Ershad-led regime, on January 19, 2015, challenged the death penalty handed down to him by the International Crimes Tribunal-2 for his crimes against humanity during the Liberation War.

His lawyer Joynul Abedin Tuhin filed an appeal with the Appellate Division of the SC, which mentions 56 reasons why the apex court should consider acquitting him of all war crime charges.

Qaisar was sentenced to death on December 23, 2014.

Jamaat-e-Islami Assistant Secretary General ATM Azharul Islam on January 29, 2015, challenged the death penalty awarded to him by a war crimes tribunal in 2014.

In his appeal filed with the Appellate Division of the SC, Azharul claimed himself innocent and sought acquittal on the five charges he was found guilty.

The International Crimes Tribunal-1 on December 30 last year handed Azharul death penalty on three out of six charges of crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 Liberation War.

The 62-year-old Jamaat leader was awarded imprisonment on two charges. The court, however, acquitted him of the other charge.

The charges of which the ICT-1 found Azharul guilty include killing of 1,400 civilians in Jharuarbeel, a wetland in Rangpur's Badarganj upazila, during the war.

The Supreme Court did not hear any of 20 war crimes-related appeals filed with its Appellate Division after disposing of the appeal of war criminal and Jamaat leader Mir Quasem Ali about one and a half years ago.

Nineteen of the appeals have been filed by convicted war criminals, and the other has been filed by the government. 

The SC is not including the war crimes-related appeals in the hearing list, as the court is disposing of many other urgent cases, said a source in the SC.