Mojaheed verdict: SC starts hearing on appeal

The Supreme Court today started 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 four-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha began hearing around 9:45am.

SM Shahjahan, a counsel for the convicted Jamaat leader, was reading out the paperbook of the appeal before the apex court around 10:25am when the report was filed.

Jamaat secretary general Mojaheed Mojaheed filed his appeal with the SC on August 11, 2013 against the death penalty awarded to him for wartime offences.

However, the state counsels did not appeal over the Mojaheed’s verdict in the war crimes case.

On July 17 in 2013, the International Crimes Tribunal-2 found the 65-year-old Jamaat leader guilty of five out of seven charges brought against him.

The tribunal sentenced him to death in connection with three charges, jailed him for life in one and sentenced him to five years in prison in another charge.

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. Chhatra Sangha turned into Al-Badr, an armed outfit.

Mojaheed was made a technocrat minister during the BNP-Jamaat-led four-party alliance rule in 2001-2006.