Quasem wants his hearing deferred for 2 months
Convicted war criminal Mir Quasem Ali yesterday filed a petition with the Supreme Court seeking two-month deferment of hearing his review petition against the judgement that upheld his death penalty.
A four-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha is scheduled to start hearing the review petition today.
Barrister Mir Ahmmad Bin Quasem, son of Quasem Ali, told The Daily Star his father submitted the petition through his lawyers seeking an adjournment on the hearing to allow his counsels to take further preparations.
Principal defence counsel Khandker Mahbub Hossain needs at least two months to take necessary preparations, as there is allegedly a big fault in charge framing by the International Crimes Tribunal-2 in the case against Mir Quasem Ali, he said.
The apex court may hold hearing on the adjournment petition today, he added.
Earlier on June 21, the apex court fixed July 25 for the hearing of the petition that sought review of its judgement.
On June 19, Quasem submitted the petition to the apex court through his lawyers seeking review of its verdict that had upheld his death penalty for the crimes he committed during the Liberation War in 1971.
In the petition, the Jamaat-e-Islami leader prayed to the SC to acquit him of all seven charges on which he was found guilty.
The International Crimes Tribunal on June 6 issued a death warrant against Quasem Ali hours after the SC had released the full text of its verdict upholding his death penalty.
On November 2, 2014, the ICT-2 handed down capital punishment on the 63-year-old Jamaat leader, who was the chief of anti-liberation force Al-Badr in Chittagong, for committing crimes against humanity.
On March 8 this year, the Appellate Division upheld the ICT-2 verdict.
Quasem is considered by many as the main financier of the anti-liberation party. He allegedly paid $25 million to an American lobbyist firm to carry out a smear campaign to make the war crimes trial controversial, the then law minister Shafique Ahmed told parliament on April 28, 2013.
The death row war criminal was shifted to the Dhaka Central Jail from Kashimpur prison in Gazipur on June 20.
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