War crimes trial of SQ Chy: Bangladesh’s SC to deliver verdict today
All eyes are on the Supreme Court that is set to deliver today its verdict on an appeal of war criminal Salauddin Quader Chowdhury challenging his death penalty and other sentences.
A four-member SC bench headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha is set to sit at 9:00am and pronounce the judgment at the beginning of today's court proceedings.
This is the fifth time the Appellate Division of the SC is going to deliver a verdict
on an appeal against a tribunal's judgment.
The three other judges of the bench are Justice Nazmun Ara Sultana, Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain and Justice Hasan Foez Siddique.
On July 7, a four-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by the chief justice fixed today for delivering the verdict on the appeal after hearing it for 13 days.
Talking to The Daily Star on Sunday, both the state and the defence counsels expressed the hope of getting a verdict in their favour.
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said he was optimistic that the Appellate Division would consider the gravity of Salauddin's wartime offences in 1971 and would uphold the Tribunal-1 verdict that sentenced him to death in four charges.
Salauddin should be sentenced to death for each of the three other charges in which the tribunal had sentenced him to 20 years in jail, he said.
The defence could not produce any credible evidence in support of their claim that Salauddin was not in Bangladesh during the war and was not involved in the crimes against humanity committed in Raozan of Chittagong, he added.
The attorney general also said several eyewitnesses had testified before the tribunal confirming Salauddin's involvement in atrocities, genocide and killing of the Hindus in different areas of Raozan and sufficient documents and evidence were produced as well.
Salauddin's principal lawyer Khandker Mahbub Hossain, meanwhile, told this correspondent that the prosecution had failed to produce credible and trustworthy evidence and witnesses before the court.
“I hope the Supreme Court will acquit Salauddin Quader Chowdhury of all the charges considering relevant evidence, documents and circumstances,” he added.
Yesterday, the attorney general refuted allegations by Khandker Mahbub who said Gonojagoron Mancha had been pressing the apex court with their demand for his client's death sentence, “which was tantamount to contempt of court”.
Briefing reporters at his office, Mahbubey Alam said the demand of the Mancha, a youth platform that wants maximum punishment for war criminals, was not contemptuous.
He also said Salauddin's family had been trying to make the trial questionable through leaking the draft verdict of the tribunal in October 2013.
Earlier in the day, Khandker Mahbub alleged that the activists of Gonojagoron Mancha were chanting slogans on streets demanding death for Salauddin, although the trial against him was pending with the apex court.
Talking to reporters at the Supreme Court Bar Association premises, the defence counsel expressed the hope that the SC would strictly consider the matter.
On October 1, 2013, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 found the BNP leader Salauddin, now 66, guilty of nine of the 23 charges brought against him of committing crimes against humanity.
The tribunal handed him death penalty on each of four charges -- involvement in the killing of Natun Chandra Singha, Awami League leader Mozaffar Ahmed and his son; and genocide in Raozan.
The tribunal sentenced him to 20 years in jail for each of three charges -- acts of genocide at Madhya Gohira Hindu Para, and acts of genocide, persecution and deportation at Jagotmallo Para, and the killing of Satish Chandra Palit in Raozan.
He was found guilty and sentenced to five years' imprisonment on each of two charges of abducting, confining and torturing Saleh Uddin, who later became vice-chancellor of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, and Nizamuddin Ahmed, who later became a journalist.
The BNP leader on October 29, 2013 appealed to the SC against the verdict seeking acquittal of all charges.
Law enforcers arrested Salauddin on December 16, 2010, at Banani in the capital in connection with torching a car in Moghbazar on June 26.
He was shown arrested on December 19 following a warrant issued by the tribunal.
Shiblee Noman, assistant commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (Ramna Zone), yesterday said additional security measures had been taken at the SC premises to avert any untoward incident ahead of the verdict.