The International Crimes Tribunal’s registrar on Sunday issued the execution warrant for Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Molla on war crimes charges.
The registrar, AKM Nasiruddin, told reporters in his office that he had issued the warrant about 4:00pm at the instruction of International Crimes Tribunal 2 after the Appellate Division’s verdict had reached the tribunal from the Supreme Court register’s office about midday.
The Appellate Division on September 17 sentenced him to death penalty on a government appeal against the Tribunal 2 verdict that on February 5 had sentenced him to life in prison.
The five-member Appellate Division bench delivered a majority verdict of four judges to one.
This is the first execution warrant for any convict among the nine — seven sentenced to death, one to life in prison, another to 90 years in prison on war crimes charges. Tribunal verdicts against five are still pending with the appeals court; three convicts are in hiding.
The tribunal issued the death warrant after the full text of the appeals verdict had reached the tribunal from the Supreme Court on Sunday. The Supreme Court released the full text on December 5.
The ICT registrar also said that copies of the warrant were served to the home affairs ministry, the Dhaka district magistrate and the Dhaka central jail.
Senior superintendent at the Dhaka central jail Forman Ali told New Age that he had received the warrant from the tribunal about 4:30pm.
‘A death warrant does not wrap up everything. We will take the next course of action in keeping with the law,’ Forman said.
Quader Molla’s defence team in a statement issued to the media said that their advocate-on-record Jainul Abedin had notified the attorney general’s office as part of the process of filing a petition for a revision of the Appellate Division’s verdict.
The statement said that it was Quader Molla’s right under Article 105 of the constitution to seek a revision of the Appellate Division verdict. ‘This constitutional right cannot be curtailed by any other law.’
It said that the warrant could only be executed following the Jail Code if the sentence is upheld after the disposal of the review petition or the expiry of 30 days that the defence is entitled to under the Appellate Division Rules to file the review petition.
The authorities will need to take the responsibility if the sentence is executed hastily in violation of the stipulations laid out in the constitution and the law, the statement said.
Quader’s Molla’s counsel Khandker Mahbub Hossain, Abdur Razzaq, Matiur Rahman Akond, Tazul Islam and Shishir Manir in an application to the jail superintendent also sought an appointment with the condemned prisoner for December 10 to discuss the issue of filing a petition seeking to review the Appellate Division verdict.
The jail authorities are yet to make a decision on the matter, one of the five counsel said.
The minister of state for law, Quamrul Islam, and the additional attorney general MK Rahman, also the chief coordinator of war crimes prosecutors, at a news briefing on Thursday, however, said that Quader could only seek presidential clemency and there was no scope in the ICT (Tribunals) Act 1973 for filing a petition seeking a review of the Appellate Division verdict.
Section 20 (3) of the ICT (Tribunals) Act 1973 states: ‘The sentence awarded under this act shall be carried out in accordance with the orders of the government.’
A five-member Appellate Division bench that the chief justice, Md Muzammel Hossain, presided over on September 17 overturned the tribunal verdict that on February 5 had sentenced Quader Molla to life in prison.
Three judges — Justice SK Sinha, Justice Md Abdul Wahhab Miah and Justice AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury — wrote the 790-page full verdict the Appellate Division delivered. Of them, only Justice Wahhab Miah upheld the tribunal court verdict.
The appeals court sentenced Quader to death for killing six members of the family of Momena Begum at Mirpur in the capital city on July 26, 1971, the offence for which he had earlier been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Quader Molla along with his cohorts had surrounded the house of Momena’s father Hazarat Ali Laskar, killed her parents, her minor brother and three minor sisters and raped one of them because Hazrat Ali was an Awami League supporter and admirer of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the verdict observed quoting Momena.
Sheikh Mujib is the founding president of Bangladesh.
The tribunal verdict that was delivered on February 5 triggered protests first at Shahbagh in Dhaka and then elsewhere in the country, with thousands demanding that he should be hanged for his crimes.
Amid such protests, the government on February 18 amended the law to allow the state to appeal against an acquittal and inadequacy of the sentence the tribunal ordered.
The tribunal acquitted Quader Molla of one count of crimes, sentenced him to life in prison on two counts and to varying terms of imprisonment on three counts.
The appeals court sentenced him to death on one of the counts for which had earlier been jailed for life.
The chief war crimes prosecutor, Golam Arief Tipoo, on March 3 filed an appeal against the ‘inadequacy of the sentence’ of Quader on five charges and against his acquittal of the other charge.
Quader filed his appeal petition the next day seeking to be acquitted of all the charges.
-With New Age input
