SC hearing on Mojaheed appeal starts Jan 14
The Supreme Court today fixed January 14 next year for starting hearing the appeal filed by Jamaat-e-Islami leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed challenging his death sentence for his crimes against humanity committed during the country’s Liberation War in 1971.
A five-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain fixed the date as the appeal was enlisted in the cause list of the court today.
The International Crimes Tribunal-2 on July 17 last year found the Jamaat secretary general guilty of five, out of seven charges, brought against him. The tribunal sentenced him to death on three charges, jailed him for life in one and sentenced him to five years in prison on another charge.
Defence lawyer Tajul Islam, on behalf of the 66-year-old Jamaat leader, filed the 95-page appeal with the SC on August 12, 2013 seeking his client’s acquittal of all the charges. He also annexed documents of 3,800 pages along with the appeal.
In the appeal, Mojaheed mentioned 115 grounds for which he should be acquitted.
According to the verdict, Mojaheed had led a “death squad” named Al-Badr that worked as an auxiliary force for the Pakistani army.
He had held superior responsibility in abetting, planning and facilitating the mass killings of the “best sons and daughters of the soil”.
In 1971, Mojaheed was a top leader of Islami Chhatra Sangha, the then student wing of Jamaat.
Mojaheed was made a technocrat minister during the BNP-Jamaat-led four-party alliance rule in 2001-2006.
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