Shazneen Murder Case: Court issues Shahidul's death warrant
A Dhaka court yesterday issued the death warrant for Shahidul Islam, convicted in the Shazneen rape and murder case.
The warrant came five days after the Supreme Court rejected Shahidul's petition for reviewing its earlier judgment that upheld his death penalty.
Judge Shafiul Azam of the Second Tribunal for Prevention of Women and Children Repression issued the warrant after receiving the full SC verdict.
Abdul Baten Chowdhury, a tribunal staff who took the death warrant to the authorities of Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj around 5:15pm, confirmed the news to The Daily Star.
A Dhaka Central Jail official said they will send the warrant to Kashimpur High Security Jail today. Shahidul is on death row at the prison.
The SC released full text of its judgment on Shahidul's review petition on April 25, observing that it was "a cold-blooded murder" and "a crime against society".
Deputy Attorney General Khondker Diliruzzaman told this paper on that day that after receiving the verdict, the jail authorities would inform Shahidul about it and ask him whether he would seek presidential mercy.
If Shahidul seeks presidential mercy and gets rejected, the jail authorities will execute him after 14 days and before 21 days from the date of receiving the verdict, he added.
On March 5, a three-member bench of the Appellate Division of the SC headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha dismissed the petition for reviewing its earlier judgment that upheld the death penalty of Shahidul.
The two other members of the bench were Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain and Justice Hasan Foez Siddique.
Shazneen Tasnim Rahman, a class-IX student of Scholastica, was raped and murdered at her Gulshan home on April 23, 1998. She was the daughter of Transcom Group Chairman Latifur Rahman.
On August 2 last year, the Appellate Division of the SC upheld the death penalty of Shahidul, a domestic help at Shazneen's home.
But it acquitted four others -- Syed Sajjad Mainuddin Hasan, a contractor for renovation of Shazneen's house, his assistant Badal, and housemaids Estema Khatun Minu and Parvin.
On September 15 last year, Shahidul filed the petition with the SC seeking review of its verdict that upheld his death penalty.
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