BangladeshBangladesh Supreme Court to hear Islamist leader’s death sentence appeal in April
Last Thursday, lawyers for Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, 63, an assistant secretary general of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party, appealed to the country’s Supreme Court to vacate the death penalty passed on Kamaruzzaman for war crimes, including genocide and torture of civilians, committed during the country’s bloody 1971 war between Bengali nationalists and the Pakistani army. So far, only one senior Jamaat official — Abdul Quader Molla — was hanged for war crimes. He was hanged in December 2013 after the Supreme Court overturned a life sentence imposed on him by the war crimes tribunal. Eight others Jamaat have been condemned to death for their part in atrocities during the 1971 war, but have not yet been executed.
Last Thursday, lawyers for Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, 63, an assistant secretary general of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party, appealed to the country’s Supreme Court to vacate the death penalty passed on Kamaruzzaman for war crimes, including genocide and torture of civilians, committed during the country’s bloody 1971 war between Bengali nationalists and the Pakistani army.
On 3 November last year, the country’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal of a death sentence imposed on Kamaruzzaman for mass killing, murder, abduction, torture, rape, and other crimes he committed or was involved in during the 1971 war.
The sentence had been first imposed on 9 May 2013 by a special war crimes tribunal.
Kamaruzzaman’s lawyers have asked the Supreme Court to drop both the verdict and sentence.
Yesterday (Wednsdeay), the Supreme Court fixed 1 April for hearing a petition by Kamaruzzaman. The 1 April date was chosen after a four-member bench of the Appellate Division, headed by Chief Justice S. K. Sinha, heard another petition by Kamaruzzaman seeking adjournment of the hearing for four weeks.
The second petition was submitted to the Supreme Court on Sunday on grounds that Kamaruzzaman’s principal counsel, Khandker Mahbub Hossain, was “unable to attend the hearing of the review petition due to unavoidable circumstances and personal difficulties,” according to the defense.
The New York Times reports that the initial verdict in May 2013, and the decision by the Supreme Court last November to uphold the verdict, were accompanied by violent protests by Jamaat supporters. Bloody protests followed other trials of Islamic leaders and high officials implicated in atrocities committed during the 1971 war.
In the protests which erupted following the death sentenced passed on Kamaruzzaman in May 2013, more than 200 people were killed and thousands injured, including Islamist activists and members of the security forces.
These protests, and the political instability they have created, are among the main challenges Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is facing. Hasina, who became president in January 2009, launched the inquiries into the 1971 war crimes in 2010.
So far, only one senior Jamaat official — Abdul Quader Molla — was hanged for war crimes. He was hanged in December 2013 after the Supreme Court overturned a life sentence imposed on him by the war crimes tribunal.
Eight others Jamaat have been condemned to death for their part in atrocities during the 1971 war, but have not yet been executed.
