The Supreme Court yesterday set 11:30am today for delivering the verdict on the petition filed by condemned war criminal Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed seeking review of the apex court judgment that upheld his death penalty.

A four-member bench of the Appellate Division of the SC, led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, concluded the hearing on the petition yesterday.

The same bench yesterday fixed today for hearing a similar petition filed by another war criminal, Salauddin Quader Chowdhury.

The bench, which was scheduled to hear the review petition of BNP leader Salauddin yesterday, deferred the hearing, as his lawyer Khandker Mahbub Hossain sought time, saying he was not prepared for placing arguments.

Mahbub also represents Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mojaheed.

During yesterday's hearing on Mojaheed's review petition, Mahbub prayed to the Appellate Division to acquit his client on the charge of killing intellectuals in 1971. He said there was no specific allegation against Mojaheed.

The lawyer, however, did not ask the apex court to acquit Mojaheed or commute his sentences on three other charges.  

The apex court on June 16 this year upheld the death penalty of Mojaheed, chief of infamous Al-Badr force, for planning and instigating the killing of intellectuals and professionals towards the end of the country's Liberation War.

The top court also upheld his life sentence, originally handed by a war crimes tribunal, for killing composer Altaf Mahmud, Jahir Uddin Jalal, Badi, Rumi (son of Shaheed Janani Jahanara Imam), Jewel and Azad at the Old MP Hostel at Nakhalpara in Dhaka. It upheld his five years' jail term for confining and torturing Ranjit Nath, a civilian, at a Bihari camp in Faridpur.

The tribunal had also given him death penalty for mass killings at Bakchar village in Faridpur, but the SC commuted his death sentence to life term on this charge.

Citing a document, Mahbub yesterday told the court that Al-Badr force was operated and led by the Pakistan military in 1971, and therefore, Mojaheed, a civilian, was not its commander.

He said at last 42 cases were filed with different police stations across the country in 1972 for killing intellectuals in 1971, but Mojaheed was not mentioned in any of the cases.

Mojaheed had no "command responsibility" for the killings and he could get the benefit of doubt in the charge, Mahbub argued.

Opposing the petition, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam asked the apex court to affirm his death penalty. He said Mojaheed, as the leader of Al Badr and Islami Chhatra Sangha, was responsible for killing the intellectuals in 1971.

Mojaheed had planned, and encouraged and instigated his followers with his speeches to kill intellectuals and professionals, he said.

He said Mojaheed, and other war criminals like Ghulam Azam and Motiur Rahman Nizami, were seen at the Physical Training College at Mohammadpur in Dhaka where the Pakistan army and their collaborators confined and tortured the pro-liberation people, including freedom fighters in 1971.    

The attorney general said the pro-liberation people and the prosecution would be disappointed, if the war criminal like Mojaheed was acquitted of the charge.

He said anti-liberation forces like Jamaat-e-Islami and Al Badr were still issuing threats to the pro-liberation people, including Prof emeritus Anisuzzaman and eminent writer and essayist Hasan Azizul Haque.

He said any person could be tried and punished by the court for committing criminal offences even if his or her name was not mentioned in a case statement.

On October 14, Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mojaheed and BNP's Salauddin submitted the review petitions.

The SC upheld the capital punishment of the two leaders in June and July after hearing their appeals against the verdicts delivered by the war crimes tribunal.

The tribunal issued death warrants on October 1, a day after the SC released the full verdicts.