SQ Chy files appeal with SC

BNP lawmaker Salauddin Quader Chowdhury yesterday appealed to the Supreme Court against a tribunal verdict that sentenced him to death for committing war crimes in 1971.
A group of lawyers including Joynul Abedin Tuhin and Huzzatul Islam, on behalf of Salauddin, submitted the 47-page appeal along with 1,286 documents to the appeal section of the SC, seeking his acquittal from the charges for which he was found guilty.
On October 1, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 found the 64-year-old Salauddin guilty of nine out of 23 charges of crimes against humanity and genocide committed during the country's Liberation War in 1971.
Citing from the appeal, Salauddin's principal counsel Khandker Mahbub Hossain told The Daily Star that the death sentence was based on hearsay statements of prosecution witnesses, who themselves had not heard of the offences directly from eyewitnesses.
Salauddin Quader Chowdhury was given capital punishment on four crimes; three of them had taken place on April 13, and the remaining one on April 17 in 1971, said Khandker Mahbub.
But he [Salauddin] was in West Pakistan and London for study from March 29, 1971 to April 20, 1974 as per a statement submitted by the mother of High Court Justice Shamim Hasnain during the hearing, he said.
Khandker Mahbub said hearing of the appeal might be held after the next parliamentary election, since some other appeals earlier filed against the war crimes verdicts were pending before the apex court.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told reporters that they would place arguments before the SC defending the tribunal's verdict.
As per International Crimes (Tribunals) Act 1973, appeals against the verdicts can be made in 30 days from the delivery of the judgement.