Mollah verdict appeals: Hearing date to be fixed Sunday

Abdul Quader Mollah

The Supreme Court will fix a date on Sunday when to begin the hearing of the appeals filed by the government and Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Mollah against a war crimes trial verdict.

A five-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain fixed the date on Tuesday after hearing a government petition for setting a date for hearing.

International Crimes Tribunal-2 on February 5 had sentenced Mollah to life imprisonment for committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.

The government on Sunday appealed seeking death penalty to Mollah for each of the six charges he faced at Tribunal-2. The tribunal convicted the 65-year-old on five wartime criminal offences out of six he was charged with.

Meanwhile, Mollah, seeking acquittal, on Monday filed an appeal with the apex court challenging the imprisonment handed down to him.

The Appellate Division would have to dispose of the appeals within 60 days of their filing.

In Mollah’s case, the tribunal awarded him life sentence (30 years) for two of the five acts of crimes against humanity in which at least 350 Bangalees were killed and a girl was raped.

He also got 15 years’ imprisonment for 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.

The appeal also sought Mollah’s death penalty on the above charge.