Govt asked not to execute Mollah

Two UN human rights experts and the Human Rights Watch have urged Bangladesh to halt the execution of Jamaat leader and convicted war criminal Quader Mollah.
UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers Gabriela Knaul and Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Christof Heyns expressed concern that Mollah could be executed as early as today without getting a chance to appeal.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh condemned Mollah to death after the prosecution appealed against the verdict of the international crimes tribunal that gave him life imprisonment.
“The right of appeal is of particular importance in death penalty cases,” Knaul said in a release of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights yesterday.
“Anyone convicted of a crime has the right to have his or her conviction and sentence reviewed by a higher tribunal, as laid down in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Bangladesh is a party,” she said. “This provision is violated where a court of final instance imposes a harsher sentence that cannot be reviewed.”
Heyns said, “Any death sentence undertaken in contravention of a government's international obligations is tantamount to an arbitrary execution.”
The two claimed that Mollah was not granted a fair trial. They said under such circumstances, the execution of Mollah could trigger further violence and unrest that has been agitating the country in the recent months.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch yesterday asked Bangladesh to halt Mollah's execution, as according to it the trial was not fair.
In a report released on Sunday on its website, the New York-based global rights watchdog also said Mollah should be allowed to appeal against the death sentence, reports UNB.
The death sentence was handed down on the basis of a retroactively amended law, a move that violates the international fair trial standards, it claimed.
Mollah's lawyer Abdul Razzaq yesterday served a legal notice on the government, asking it not to execute Mollah until the disposal of a review petition to be filed challenging the death sentence.
Jamaat last night called another daylong countrywide hartal for today, protesting what it said was the government's conspiracy to hang Mollah for political gain and in violation of the Supreme Court rules and jail codes.
Razzaq sent the legal notice to the home secretary, inspector general of prisons, deputy inspector general of prisons, Dhaka district commissioner, senior superintendent of the Dhaka Central Jail and its jailor.
The notice came a day after the death warrant of the Jamaat assistant secretary general was issued by the International Crimes Tribunal-2.
In the notice, Razzaq said the death warrant based on which the respondents were preparing to execute Mollah was defective, as it had been issued in violation of rule 979 of the Jail Code. He said according to the rule, the death warrant had to be issued by the court or tribunal that had delivered the death sentence, in this case the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court.
Since the warrant had been issued in violation of the law, its execution would be unlawful, he added.
A lawful warrant has to be issued after disposal of the review petition, Razzaq said, adding that the respondents were required to give Mollah 21 days on receiving the death warrant.
Mollah's family members and the defence lawyers held separate press conferences at the Supreme Court Bar Association yesterday. They urged the government not to hurriedly execute Mollah disregarding the jail code.
His family members said they did not care whether Mollah would be hanged. His execution would give momentum to the Islamic revolution in Bangladesh and fall of the present government, they claimed.