If there was any mistake, it’s lawyers’

The Supreme Court yesterday said if there was any fault in the executions of two Chuadanga men, Abdul Mokim and Golam Rasul Jharu, it was made by their lawyers.

The lawyers should have applied to the apex court for analogous hearing of the criminal appeals (filed by the convicts through lawyers) and the jail appeals (filed through the jail authorities), as the jail appeals were included in the cause list. "But why don't you [lawyers] confess to the fault?" the court asked.

A four-member bench of the SC's Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain said this while hearing the issues regarding execution of the two and non-disposal of their regular appeals filed through their lawyers.

During the hearing, Asif Hasan, the lawyer for Mokim and Jharu, told the court that the jail authorities concerned are responsible for executing his clients before their appeals were disposed of, and the jail authorities need to be warned.

The lawyer said family members of the two, who are illiterate and poor, had not informed the lawyers about their filing and hearing of the jail appeals.

The court then asked how it was the fault of the jail authorities.

The jail authorities executed the convicts after the Appellate Division dismissed their jail appeals and the president rejected their mercy petitions, the apex court said, adding that such incidents took place due to the lawyers' mistake.

The court said sometimes lawyers on the record don't appear in the court although the judges sit in the courtrooms.

It is not responsible of them, the bench said, adding that the court faced criticisms after it was reported that the two convicts were executed before their appeals were disposed of.

Lawyer Asif Hasan said there was no legal mistake in the execution.

Attorney General AM Amin Uddin told the court that some media reports published on the issue were not accurate as journalists were not given proper information.

He said the jail authorities executed the convicts following the legal and official procedures.

After the proceedings were concluded, the SC set today for resuming hearing on the issue.

Mokim and Jharu were executed at the Jashore Central Jail on November 16, 2017.

They were hanged after the Appellate Division bench of then chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain and Justice Mirza Hussain Haider upheld an HC judgment on November 15, 2016.

In the judgment, the HC had handed the death penalty to the two for murdering a former union parishad member of Chuadanga's Alamdanga, Md Manwar Hossain, on June 28, 1994.

The two convicts appealed against the HC decision, but the highest court of the country rejected their jail appeals, paving the way for the execution.

All of a sudden, their criminal appeals against the death sentence appeared on Wednesday's (November 3) cause list of the Appellate Division for a hearing, leaving everybody perplexed: Had the state executed two men even before their appeals were heard?

Humayun Kabir, another lawyer for the convicts on that day (Wednesday), said they learned only a few days ago that his clients were executed. Their appeals were filed in 2013, it has been eight years since then.