Quader Mollah

The Supreme Court yesterday released the full judgment on the appeals against war crimes tribunal's verdict on Jamaat Assistant Secretary General Abdul Quader Mollah.
Throwing out the sentence of life imprisonment passed by the tribunal, the apex court said the offences committed by Mollah during the Liberation War were so horrid that the death penalty was the only proper sentence for him.
A judge of the SC's Appellate Division bench dealing with the case even said the culpability of Mollah was no less than that of any of the people hanged by the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1946, for war crimes committed during the World War II.
The release of the full text of the judgment has arguably cleared the way for the execution of the Jamaat leader, known as Mirpurer Kasai (Butcher of Mirpur) for his brutality during the war.
Mollah was moved to Dhaka Central Jail from Kashimpur Jail-2 yesterday afternoon. He is still in a regular prison cell but will be taken to death row once a copy of the full judgment reaches the prison.
However, there seems to be a debate among lawyers on whether Mollah has the right to move a review petition before the apex court.
His lawyer Abdur Razzaq was adamant that Mollah had the right to move the petition while the prosecution team coordinator disagreed.
Razzaq told The Daily Star that Mollah would file the review petition since he had the right as per the constitution.
“We will file the review petition [on behalf of Mollah] within 30 days of getting the certified copy of the full judgment,” he said.
If the Supreme Court rejects the review petition, he would be executed between 21 and 28 days of the rejection, he added.
He said Mollah and his family members would decide whether to pray for presidential mercy.
Additional Attorney General and coordinator of the prosecution team MK Rahman, however, said the government would now execute Mollah by an executive order as per the relevant rules of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973.
He said, “The sentence awarded under this act shall be carried out in accordance with the orders of the government.” There was no scope for Mollah to file a review petition as per the act and the constitution, he claimed.
State Minister for Law Qamrul Islam said the government would carry out the Supreme Court verdict as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, a legal expert requesting anonymity told The Daily Star that the government could execute Mollah any time since no application seeking a stay of the execution process was pending with the apex court.
Sources said the Supreme Court authorities would now send three copies of the 790-page judgment, along with the case records, to the International Crimes Tribunal-2. The tribunal would then ask its registrar to issue a death warrant against Mollah and send it to the jail authorities concerned.
On receiving the warrant, the jail authorities will initiate the process of his execution.
The sources said the whole procedure could be halted by the Supreme Court if it passed a stay order on his execution.
On February 5, Tribunal-2 sentenced Mollah to life imprisonment in two of the six charges, for the massacre of at least 350 Bangalees and the killing of Laskar and his family members.
He was also awarded 15 years' imprisonment in three charges, for the killings of Mirpur Bangla College student Pallab, poet Meherunnesa and three of her family members, and Journalist Abu Taleb.
The "light" sentencing of Mollah sparked uproar and led to the Shahbagh movement, which sought maximum punishment for war criminals.
The movement led to the amendment of relevant laws, allowing the government to file appeals with the Supreme Court challenging inadequate sentencing by the tribunals.
The government, moving on behalf of the victims, and Mollah filed appeals with the apex court in March, and on September 17, a five member-bench of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court pronounced a short verdict on the appeals.
With a judge not agreeing, the court awarded the death penalty to Mollah for the killing of Hazrat Ali Laskar and five of his family members in 1971.
The bench dismissed the appeal filed by Mollah seeking acquittal.
JUDGES' OBSERVATIONS
Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, a senior judge of the bench, in the verdict said the manner in which Mollah had led the killers in the planned murder of Hazrat Ali Laskar and his five family members “exceeded all norms of humanity”.
“The horrible picture of the carnage that had been unleashed was so brutal that the sentence of death is to be taken as the proper sentence,” he added.
He said it would be difficult to inflict a death sentence in other cases if the death penalty was not awarded to Mollah in this case.
Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain and two other bench members -- Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain and Justice AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury Manik -- agreed with the observations made by Justice Sinha.
However, Justice Md Abdul Wahhab Miah disagreed and upheld the life term handed down by Tribunal-2.
Justice Sinha said Mollah never showed any repentance for his acts and neither had his counsels pray for the minimum sentence. “There is no cogent ground to take a lenient view in awarding the sentence,” he added.
About the life sentence given by the tribunal on charge-6, Justice Sinha said it had been awarded “based on total non-application of mind and contrary to the sentencing principle”.
“If the gravity of the offence is taken as the basis for awarding sentence to the appellant [Mollah], it is one of the fittest cases to award the appellant the highest sentence in respect of charge no 6 [killing of Hazrat and family members] in which the killing and rape were brutal, cold blooded, diabolical and barbarous,” Justice Sinha added.
Justice Shamsuddin said apart from the killing of Laskar and his family members, Mollah “deserved the same sentence” for the killing of pro-liberation poet Meherunnesa, her mother and two brothers (charge-2).
“Since the appellant cannot be hanged twice, I shall confine my death sentence for the offences under charge 6 only,” he said.
He said the offences under charge-2 and -6 are “so abhorrent” that sparing Mollah the gallows would be “tantamount to frustrating the general will of the parliament”, which had enacted the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973, keeping capital punishment at the top of the sentence list.
“Killing of Hazrat Ali's minor son and Meherunnesa was too gruesome to be contemplated. These are the acts that in 1971 shocked the world's conscience, compelled several million people to take sanctuary in India,” he said.
“In my view his culpability is in no way less than that of any of the 11 people that were hanged on 6th October 1946 pursuant to the conviction Nuremberg Tribunal passed or that of Ajmal Kasab who was sent to the gallows by the Indian courts notwithstanding that the death sentence is an exception in India,” Justice Shamsuddin continued.
“Life is, no doubt precious, but the appellant [Mollah] himself caused wanton destruction of many precious lives in a fiendish manner generating some kind of reign of terror in 1971 which ignited wholesale indignation.
“His victims were helpless. He aided and abetted in the commission of worst kind of rape over two minor girls, one of whom succumbed to the carnal assault, in a profoundly reprehensible savage and repulsive manner which is bound to put on turmoil any conscience.”
“His [Mollah's] monstrosity must have stunned all righteous people, not only in 1971 but also afterwards, maybe through eternity, not only in Bangladesh but beyond. As such death is the only appropriate sentence,” said the judge.
His acts were inconceivably ominous, frenzied and demon-like. The traumatic wounds his acts caused society will never be healed, Justice Shamsuddin added.
The court sentenced Mollah to death in charge-6, life imprisonment in charge-4 (mass killing in Keraniganj) and -5 (mass killing in Mirpur), and 15 years' jail in charge-1,-2, and -3 (killings of Pallab, Meherunnesa, and journalist Abu Taleb.