The five-member SC bench, headed by Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain, will sit at 9:00am and pronounce the judgment at the beginning of today’s court proceedings. This case is at the top of today’s cause list of this court.
The four other judges of the SC bench are Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, Justice MA Wahhab Miah, Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain and Justice AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury Manik.
“We will decide our next move after knowing the Supreme Court verdict,” said Imran.
Meanwhile, law enforcing agencies have deployed their men around the SC premises to ensure foolproof security during the pronouncement of the verdict in this historic case.
This is for the first time the Supreme Court is delivering a war crimes verdict.
This case has special significance also for the February 5 rise of an unprecedented mass movement at the Shahbagh intersection demanding capital punishment for war criminals.
On February 5, International War Crimes Tribunal-2 sentenced Quader Mollah merely to life imprisonment, even though it was proved beyond doubt that the Jamaat leader had committed heinous war crimes.
The movement, spearheaded by bloggers and online activists, put the Jamaat-e-Islami in a serious crisis of existence as the thousands of protesters also demanded a ban on this anti-liberation political party and its business organisations.
The Jamaat, with the help of the main opposition BNP and the radical Islamist organisation Hefajat-e Islam, came down hard on Shahbagh protestors, falsely labelling them as “atheists”.
However, the Shahbagh movement, which soon spread even outside the country, prompted the government to amend the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act-1973 to ensure the right of the state to appeal on behalf of the war crimes victims of 1971.
Before that amendment on February 17, only convicted accused in war crimes cases had the right to appeal with the SC against the conviction handed down by a tribunal.
Quader Mollah’s lawyer naturally appealed against the tribunal’s verdict. But after the amendment, the state also appealed seeking his death sentence.
The defence counsel, barrister Abdur Razzaq, also assistant secretary general of Jamaat, vehemently opposed the government’s appeal.
He argued the government’s appeal was not acceptable under the amended International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973, since the amendment was passed after Tribunal-2 had convicted his client of war crimes.
The apex court then appointed seven noted jurists as amici curiae (friends of court) to get their opinions on this debate.
Five of the seven amici curiae opined the amendment was applicable even in Mollah’s case while two others disagreed. The issue will be settled through today’s judgment.
Interestingly, the state, defence counsel and amici curiae agreed that the SC has inherent power to increase or decrease a sentence given by any court even without any appeal.
During the SC hearing, which continued for 39 working days between April and July, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam argued that the tribunal had not explained as to why it had not sentenced the convict to death.
He said the government’s appeal was acceptable under the amended provisions of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973, and that the amendment does not curtail the rights of the defendant.
He also argued that the constitution protected the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973, and that the act could not be challenged.
The top law officer of the state prayed to the apex court to accept the government appeal and award the death penalty to Quader Mollah for his crimes committed against humanity in 1971.
If proper punishment for the crimes was not ensured, justice would not be done, he added.
On the other hand, the defence counsel argued that the prosecution had placed poor evidence and documents in the case, and therefore, his client could not be punished in this case. He prayed for Mollah’s acquittal.
A special prosecution team had brought six charges against Mollah and five of them were proved in the tribunal beyond doubt.
But the three-member tribunal-2 decided to give life imprisonment in two charges and different term’s jail in the other three charges.
The state appealed for Mollah’s conviction in all six charges against him and sought the death sentence for him.
According to the proved charges, Mollah was involved in killing 344 people, one Hazrat Ali and five members of his family, Bangla College student Pallab, poet Meherun Nesa, her mother and two brothers, and Khandakar Abu Taleb in Mirpur area in the capital.
The sixth charge, which was not proved, was Mollah’s involvement in killing freedom fighters Osman Gani and Golam Mostafa in Keraniganj.
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