Review or not?
The Supreme Court is yet to make it clear whether a convicted war criminal has the right to seek a review of its verdict.
A debate over the issue arose in December last year when the now executed war criminal Abdul Quader Mollah had filed two review petitions against the SC judgment in his case.
The debate has cropped up again, as Delawar Hossain Sayedee, sentenced yesterday to imprisonment till death, has also decided to seek a review of the apex court verdict.
“The confusion and controversy over acceptance of such petitions are still not over, as the Supreme Court is yet to release its full judgment on Mollah's petitions,” said Khurshid Alam Khan, an SC lawyer and editor of Dhaka Law Reports, a regular publication on the apex court judgments.
The full judgment on Mollah's petitions will clear all confusions, as the judges are expected to come up with interpretations in details, he told The Daily Star last night.
The state and the defence counsels in Sayedee's case have expressed differing views over the matter.
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam yesterday told reporters that the war crimes cases were being tried under a special law, which does not allow any of the parties to seek a review of SC verdict.
Asked if the government will file any review petition against the SC verdict on Sayedee, the attorney general again said, "There is no scope for filing such a petition as the trial was run under a special law."
He, however, said he feels bad, as he did not get the judgment he had expected from the SC in the trial of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Sayedee.
“I expected the Supreme Court would award death penalty to Sayedee.” Yet, due to the legal bar, his office will not move a review petition seeking capital punishment, he added.
On the other hand, Sayedee's lawyers Tajul Islam and Imran Siddiq told this correspondent that their client has the right to move the review petition.
The SC had rejected the review petitions from Quader Mollah after “hearing on merit”, which means that the SC has accepted his review petitions for hearing, they argued.
According to Tajul, the Appellate Division's short verdict on Mollah's review petitions has set a precedence that any convict in a war crimes case has the right to move a review petition.
He added Sayedee will file a petition seeking acquittal after getting the full judgment of the apex court.
Jamaat leader Quader Mollah, who was hanged on December 12 last year, had filed two petitions with the SC on December 10 and 11 seeking review of his death penalty and life imprisonment handed down for war crimes.
On December 12, a five-member SC bench headed by Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain dismissed the petitions after hearing arguments from the defence and the prosecution.
According to SC sources, the full judgment on Mollah's is expected to be released within a few weeks.
During the hearing on Mollah's review petitions, his lawyer Abdur Razzaq told the court that his client had the right to move the petitions to the apex court “as per the constitution”.
He also argued that the SC had inherent powers to review its verdict.
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam opposed it saying that the petitions were not acceptable as per the constitution, since Mollah had been tried and convicted under the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973.
Appeals in the war crimes cases against three others -- former Jamaat ameer Ghulam Azam; its leaders Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury -- are now pending with the apex court.
Meanwhile, the SC will deliver a verdict any day on the appeal of another Jamaat leader, Muhammad Kamaruzzaman.
Two international crimes tribunals have awarded capital punishment to Mojaheed, Kamaruzzaman and Salauddin and handed down 90 years' imprisonment to Ghulam Azam for genocide and crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971.
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