SQ Chy case comes next

The Supreme Court is now set to hear and settle the appeal of war criminal and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and it could start as soon as June 16 and be done with this year.

On October 1, 2013, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 found Salauddin guilty of nine out of 23 charges pressed against him for crimes against humanity and genocide committed during the Liberation War.

The tribunal sentenced him to death on four charges, 20 years in jail on three charges and five years in jail on two other charges.

Salauddin was then the only incumbent member of parliament to have been convicted of war crimes and condemned. The BNP leader on October 29, 2013, appealed to the SC against the verdict 

seeking acquittal.

Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told The Daily Star on May 29 that the apex court may start holding the hearing on Salauddin's appeal on June 16. He hoped that most of the pending nine war crimes related appeals would be heard and disposed of within this year, if the SC's current pace of hearing and disposing of such appeals remains.

The Appellate Division of the SC on May 27 concluded hearing the appeal of war crimes convict Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami, and fixed June 16 for delivering the verdict.

Appeals of Mojaheed and Salauddin were on the hearing list of the Appellate Division since April.

Apart from Mojaheed and Salauddin, other war crimes related appellants were Jamaat chief Motiur Rahman Nizami and its leaders Mir Quashem Ali, ATM Azharul Islam and Abdus Subhan, expelled Awami League leader of Brahmanbaria Mobarak Hossain and former state minister of HM Ershad's regime Syed Mohammad Qaisar.

The two international crimes tribunals convicted and sentenced them to death for their crimes against humanity during the Liberation War.

Besides, the government has submitted an appeal to the SC seeking death penalty for Abdul Jabbar, former Jatiya Party lawmaker, now on the run.

The Tribunal-1 on February 24 this year sentenced Jabbar to imprisonment until death for committing crimes against humanity in 1971.

The Tribunal-1 so far disposed off nine cases filed against eight war criminals, while the Tribunal-2 settled 10 cases of war crimes offences committed by 12 people.