Govt to appeal this week

The government may file an appeal with the Supreme Court this week seeking death penalties to Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Mollah for each of the six charges he faced at the International Crimes Tribunal-2.
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told reporters yesterday that his office would move the appeal containing three grounds for challenging the verdict of International Crimes Tribunal-2 in the case against Mollah.
The Tribunal-2 verdict delivered on February 5 convicted the 65-year-old for five wartime criminal offences among the six charges filed against him.
In two of the five acts of crimes against humanity, at least 350 Bangalees were killed and a girl was raped. The tribunal awarded him life sentence (30 years) for the offences.
He also got 15 years' imprisonment for his complicity in three other criminal offences in which six people were killed.
He was acquitted of the sixth charge of killing hundreds of people at Keraniganj during the Liberation War, as the charge was not proved in the tribunal.
Yesterday, the attorney general said the tribunal should have awarded death sentences to Mollah for each of the charges.
The government would pray to the Supreme Court to award death penalty to Quader Mollah on the charge of killing people at Keraniganj too, he told newsmen at his office.
The government took the initiative for moving the appeal as the verdict of Tribunal-2 caused a stir among common people and prompted the youths to take to the streets that led to the Shahbagh protest.
The appeal would be lodged under the amended provisions of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973, that empower the government, informants and complainants to appeal against any verdict of the war crimes tribunals.
The defence and the prosecution have time until March 6 to file the appeals and the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court would have to dispose of the appeals within 60 days of their filing.