Killers to walk gallows

Julfikar Ali Manik and Ashutosh Sarkar

The light of justice yesterday completely removed the darkness that had hung over the nation for 34 years following the heinous killing of Bangabandhu as the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence to a dozen killers earlier confirmed by the High Court.

Amid an unprecedented tight security on the court premises as well as across the country, a five-member special bench of the Appellate Division delivered the nine-minute "short order" of the judgment around 11:45am in a jam-packed courtroom of the chief justice.

"We are of the view that it [killing of Bangabandhu] is not a case of criminal conspiracy to commit mutiny, rather it is a criminal conspiracy to commit the murder of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and other members of his family," said Justice Md Tafazzul Islam, the most senior member of the bench, while reading out the order.

This order dismisses the appeal petitions of five convicts against the third judgment of the High Court that handed them and seven others death penalty.

These five, now languishing in jail, had filed the petitions in October 2007 giving five different points to challenge the High Court verdict.

Of seven other convicts, six have been absconding while the other is dead.

With yesterday's verdict, their punishment remains valid.

"The appellants having failed to make out a case of extenuating circumstance to commute their sentence of death, we are not inclined to interfere with the sentence of death awarded to the appellants by the learned sessions judge and maintained by the High Court Division," says the Supreme Court verdict.

The other members of the five-member bench were justices Md Abdul Aziz, BK Das, Md Muzammel Hossain and SK Sinha. They heard submissions of the appeals for 29 days beginning on October 5.

When the delivery of the verdict was finished, the courtroom got filled with cheerful buzzes only to be hushed into silence within a few moments. After the nerve-racking silence, some of the relatives of Bangabandhu, including grandson Fazle Noor Taposh, burst into tears.

Soon the judges left the courtroom.

The emotional outburst continued for another 15 minutes. Bangabandhu's relatives, lawyers, the complainant and investigation officer of the case, and a few Awami League leaders were seen hugging each other, tears still in their eyes. They came out of the room but stayed on the court premises for a while.

"The nation has got justice," Chief State Counsel of the case advocate Anisul Huq told The Daily Star at that moment.

Attorney General advocate Mahbubey Alam said, "This verdict will be considered as the best historic judgment of the nation."

Barrister Abdullah Al-Mamun, who represented the convicts, told The Daily Star, "According to the law, we will file a review petition with the Supreme Court as soon as we get the certified copy of the judgment."

In general, most lawyers considered the verdict to have freed the nation from the shame of killing the father of the nation and set the example that no matter how powerful a killer is, they are not beyond the purview of the law.

According to lawyers, if the review petition fails to produce any result, the convicts could seek the president's mercy.

If the president refuses their mercy petitions, the convicts will get 21 more days before they are hanged within the next week, said defence lawyer barrister Abdullah Al-Mamun.

In case of absconding convicts, whenever one is arrested he will be sent to jail. He will have the right to file a petition with the Supreme Court through the jail. The court may either entertain the petition or reject it. The convict can then seek the president's mercy.

The court wore a different look yesterday with closed circuit cameras installed at two points and several metal detectors set up. Security staffs from all agencies of the government were seen everywhere in the court. They checked the chief justice's room before the court opened.

People started pouring in the Supreme Court as early as 8:00am. By 11:00am, there were so many people in the corridors of the court building that it became very difficult even to walk. Hundreds of curious onlookers were seen waiting on the footpath outside the Supreme Court boundary.

Soon after the verdict, a small group of people chanted slogans and held a rally on the court premises for a short time expressing their joy.

The whole country remained glued to TV sets for live telecasts from the court to hear the final verdict.

Many schools in the capital were kept closed. The traffic movement in the city was unusually thin for any given Thursday.

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's personal assistant Mohitul Islam, who had survived the attack by a gang of army officers on the night of August 15, 1975, filed the case for the killings on October 2, 1996.

On January 15, 1997, the charge sheet was filed against 20 living and four dead persons--Khandakar Moshtaque, Mahbubul Alam Chashi, Capt Mustafa and Risalder Sarwar.

As all except the dead were brought to trial, the court examined 61 witnesses and heard submissions for 151 days.

On November 8, 1998, the trial court handed death sentence to 15 of the 20 accused.

On December 14, 2000, a two-member High Court bench gave a split verdict on the trial court's judgment: one judge upheld the death sentences of all 15 convicts while the other upheld that of 10. The judges were also divided on which section of the Code of Criminal Procedure to be followed for the death sentence of one convict.

On April 30, 2001, a third judge of the High Court resolved the matter and finally gave death sentence to 12 killers. Of them, the following are now in jail: Lt Col Syed Farooq Rahman, Lt Col Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Maj Bazlul Huda, Maj (Lancer) AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed and Lt Col (Artillery) Mohiuddin Ahmed, who appealed with the Supreme Court against the High Court verdict.

The six absconding are: Lt Col Khandaker Abdur Rashid, Lt Col Shariful Haque Dalim, Lt Col SHMB Nur Chowdhury, Lt Col AM Rashed Chowdhury, Capt Abdul Mazed and Risaldar Mosleuddin Khan. The other convict Lt Col Abdul Aziz Pasha died in Zimbabwe in June 2001 where he took political asylum.

Of the jailed convicts, Huda was brought to Dhaka from Bangkok in 1998 while AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed was brought from USA during the last caretaker government's rule. The other three were arrested in Dhaka.

According to sources, the absconding convicts took refuge in Pakistan, Libya, USA and Canada.

Soon the convicts in jail filed leave-to-appeal petitions with the Supreme Court against the High Court verdict.

But its hearing was stalled with the change in government in October 2001. After the BNP-led alliance government came to power, the Supreme Court did not hear the case even for a single day.

The hearing of the leave-to-appeal petitions finally took place on August 7, 2007, and the appeals were granted on September 23 the same year.

The hearing of the appeals against the High Court verdict began on October 5, 2009.

The killers murdered Bangabandhu and seven of his family members and three security personnel at his Dhanmondi residence on August 15, 1975. Soon after the killing, their accomplice Khandaker Moshtaque took over power as president and framed an indemnity ordinance to protect the killers.

Later, subsequent military governments led by Ziaur Rahman and HM Ershad had rewarded the killers with various diplomatic posts.