Govt set to appeal against acquittal

The government will file separate appeals within a day or two with the Supreme Court (SC) against the High Court (HC) verdict acquitting six former military men accused in the Jail Killing case.
Attorney General (AG) Mahbubey Alam told The Daily Star yesterday that his office has already drafted five leave-to-appeal petitions against the acquittal and will file those today or tomorrow.
He said the appeals mentioned many grounds upon which the SC can rescind the HC verdict acquitting these accused persons.
Explaining this, he said the HC delivered its verdict disbelieving the statements of almost all the witnesses who said the accused persons were directly involved in the killing of four national leaders inside Dhaka Central Jail on November 3, 1975.
He however said there might be some inconsistencies in the statements of witnesses.
The HC judgement accepted the allegations against only one accused, the AG said.
Mahbubey Alam said there are evidence that the acquitted accused had conspired to kill the four leaders in jail. "We have confidence in the apex court, and we believe we'll get justice there," he added.
The HC on August 28 last year acquitted six accused persons including Lt Col (dismissed) Syed Farooq-ur Rahman, Lt Col (retd) Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Major (retd) AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed and Major (retd) Bazlul Huda.
It upheld the death sentence of Risaldar (retd) Muslemuddin, still on the run.
Of those acquitted, Dafadar (dismissed) Marfat Ali Shah and Dafadar (dismissed) Abdul Hashem Mridha were sentenced to death by the trial court. The other four-- Farooq, Shahriar Rashid, Huda and Mohiuddin--were given life imprisonment.
Marfat Ali and Abdul Hashem are fugitives and the other four are in jail.
Contacted, Deputy Attorney General ASM Abdul Mobin said four appeals will be filed against the acquittal of four with life term and another appeal against the acquittal of two sentenced to death.