War Crimes: Bangladesh SC to hear death row convicts’ pleas on November 2

Bangladesh’s Supreme Court will hear on November 2 the pleas of two top opposition leaders, facing execution for war crimes, months after the apex court had upheld their death sentences for committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

Jamaat-e-Islami’s secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and Oppostion Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s stalwart Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury had filed the pleas on October 14, seeking review of their death sentences.

“Their petitions for the review of the (Supreme Court’s) Appellate Division will be heard on November 2. Chamber judge of the apex court Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain set the date,” a spokesman of the attorney general’s office said.

Both the convicts, who are in their late 60s, were senior ministers in ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia’s BNP-led coalition government with Jamaat being its key partner.

Mujahid, the second man of Jamaat which was opposed to Bangladesh’s 1971 independence from Pakistan, was found to be a key mastermind of the massacre of the country’s top intelligentsia just ahead of the December 16, 1971 victory.