Long wait for verdict

The Supreme Court has yet to deliver a verdict on the appeals filed over sentencing of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delawar Hossain Sayedee for his crimes against humanity in 1971, although it has finished hearing around three months ago.
Sayedee on March 28 last year appealed to the court for his acquittal while the government sought his punishment in all the eight charges filed against him.
Neither the attorney general nor the defence could say when the Appellate Division of the SC would announce the judgement.
They said the matter was in the custody of the SC judges, who were not supposed to disclose anything before announcing the verdict in the open court.
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam on June 22 told The Daily Star only the judges know when they would announce the verdict in the appeals.
“I am also eagerly waiting for the verdict like others,” he said.
Sayedee's counsel SM Shahjahan told The Daily Star that he had no idea when the court might announce the verdict.       
After hearing arguments on the appeals, a five-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by the chief justice on April 16 kept those waiting for verdict.
The International Crimes Tribunal-1 on February 28 last year sentenced Sayedee to death for killing Ibrahim Kutti and one Bisa Bali in Pirojpur during the Liberation War in 1971.  It found him guilty of all the eight out of 20 charges filed against him.
Activists of Jamaat and pro-Jamaat student body Islami Chhatra Shibir last year went on the rampage across the country in protest against the verdict, leaving more than 60 people dead.
The Jamaat-Shibir men in Bogra even tried to coax people into joining in by propaganda that Sayedee's face had surfaced on the moon and that it was everyone's holy duty to save the Jamaat nayeb-e-ameer.
The SC on September 17 last year handed down the death penalty on another Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Mollah for his wartime atrocities in 1971.
Mollah was executed on December 12 last year.