BDR Carnage: HC verdict on death reference, appeals on November 26

The High Court on November 26 will deliver the verdict on the death reference and appeals in the BDR carnage case.

A three-member HC special bench yesterday set the date.

The same bench had kept the reference and appeals as curia advisari vult, a Latin legal term meaning the verdict could be delivered anytime, on April 13 this year.

If a lower court sentences any person to death in a case, its judgment is examined by the HC through hearing arguments for confirmation of the death sentence. The case documents and judgment reaches as death reference to the HC from the lower court in seven days after the latter delivers the verdict.

The bench of Justice Md Shawkat Hossain, Justice Md Abu Zafor Siddique and Justice Nazrul Islam Talukder has heard arguments on the death reference and appeals for 370 days.

Seventy-four people, including 57 army officials, were massacred during the BDR mutiny on February 25-26 in 2009 at the Pilkhana headquarters of the paramilitary force, later renamed Border Guard Bangladesh.

The death reference and the appeals were filed with the HC months after a Dhaka court announced the verdict on November 5, 2013, nearly five years after the bloody mutiny.

The trial court gave death sentences to 150 BDR soldiers and two civilians, and jailed 160 others for life for their roles and involvement in the carnage.

It also handed down rigorous imprisonment to 256 people, mostly BDR soldiers. The court acquitted the remaining 277 accused, but the government later appealed against the acquittal of 69 of them. The HC started hearing the death reference and appeals of the convicts in January, 2015.