Death-row inmates file review petitions

Two Bangladeshi opposition leaders filed final review petitions against the apex court’s verdict that upheld their death sentences.

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Dhaka - Two Bangladeshi opposition leaders filed final review petitions with the Supreme Court on Wednesday against its verdict that upheld their death sentences for war crimes in 1971.

In the petitions filed by their lawyers, both Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, secretary general of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party, and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, a leader of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) made pleas to the apex court to scrap their convictions.

Sources said the apex court will now set a date for hearing the petitions.

On October 1 Bangladesh’s war crimes tribunal issued two death warrants of executions for the two opposition leaders for crimes against humanity during the country’s Liberation War.

Jail authorities said earlier that they were ready to carry out the executions.

After returning to power in January 2009, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Bangladesh’s independence hero Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, established the first tribunal in March 2010, almost 40 years after the 1971 fight for independence from Pakistan.

Muhammad Kamaruzzaman, a Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party leader convicted of war crimes, was executed in April, the second execution for crimes against humanity committed during the country ‘s war of independence in 1971.

Another Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Molla, also convicted of war crimes, was executed on December 12, 2013.

Both BNP and Jamaat have dismissed the court as a government “ show trial” and said it is a domestic set-up without the oversight or involvement of the United Nations.

Muslim-majority Bangladesh was called East Pakistan until 1971.

The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said about 3 million people were killed in the 9-month war.

Xinhua