SQ Chy was in Bangladesh in 1971, AG tells SC

Attorney General Mahbubey Alam today placed before the Supreme Court a report of the Daily Pakistan, which "indicates that war criminal Salauddin Quader Chowdhury was in Bangladesh during the Liberation War in 1971".

The report published on September 29, 1971, reads that Fazlur Quader’s son was injured in a bomb attack by freedom fighters. The attorney general added to the apex court that the son mentioned in the report is Salauddin Quader Chowdhury.

The four Judges of the Appellate Division including the Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha went through the newspaper report and asked the Attorney General’s office to submit the newspaper through swearing affidavit.

The other judges of the bench are Justice Nazmun Ara Sultana, Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain and Justice Hasan Foez Siddique.

The apex court bench is set to deliver the verdict on July 29 on the appeal of the BNP leader challenging the sentences, including the death sentence, handed down to him by the International Crimes Tribunal for his war crimes in 1971.

Defence counsels claimed before the SC during the appeal hearing that Salauddin was not in Bangladesh during the Liberation War. Salauddin went to Pakistan on March 29, 1971 for studying in Punjab University and he returned to the country in 1974, the defence claimed.

Earlier on October 1, 2013, tribunal-1 found Salauddin, now 66, guilty of nine of the 23 charges brought against him for committing crimes against humanity.

The tribunal handed him the death penalty on each of four charges -- involvement in the killing of Natun Chandra Singha, Awami League leader Mozaffar Ahmed and his son Sheikh Alamgir; and genocide at Sultanpur and Unosattur Para in Raozan.

The tribunal sentenced Salauddin to 20 years in jail for each of three charges -- acts of genocide at Madhya Gohira Hindu Para, and acts of genocide, persecution and deportation at Jagotmallo Para, and the killing of Satish Chandra Palit in Raozan.

He was found guilty and sentenced to five years' imprisonment on each of two charges of abducting, confining and torturing Saleh Uddin, who later became vice-chancellor of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, and Nizamuddin Ahmed, who later became a journalist, at his [Salauddin's] father's Goods Hill Torture Centre in Chittagong.

The BNP leader on October 29, 2013 appealed to the SC against the verdict seeking acquittal of all charges.

Law enforcers arrested Salauddin on December 16, 2010 at Banani in the capital in connection with torching a car in Moghbazar on June 26. He was shown arrested on December 19 following a warrant issued by the tribunal.