Mojaheed, SQ Chy to file review pleas tomorrow

War criminals Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury will file petitions with the Supreme Court tomorrow seeking review of their death penalty.

“We have almost prepared the review petitions on behalf of Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and they will be filed tomorrow,” Khandker Mahbub Hossain, principal counsel for both the convicts, told The Daily Star today.

He said the main grounds in the review petitions are that his clients have been sentenced to death on the basis of false and fabricated statements of prosecution witnesses.

If the statements are properly examined, their death penalty will not be upheld, Khandker Mahbub said, adding that the death penalty, as a sentence, is not acceptable in the world now.

The SC on September 30 released its full verdicts that upheld the death penalty of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mojaheed and BNP leader Salauddin, leaving them with the option of seeking review of the verdicts.

In two judgments in June and July this year, the SC affirmed the death penalty of Mojaheed and Salauddin after hearing their appeals against the verdicts of two International Crimes Tribunals that handed them capital punishment around two years ago for committing crimes against humanity.

Meanwhile, five lawyers met Mojaheed at Dhaka central jail this afternoon to consult about filing his review petition.

Shishir Manir, who led the lawyers, told The Daily Star that Mojaheed hoped that the SC will consider his review petition, and therefore, he will get acquitted of the war crimes charges brought against him, as he was not involved in any offence, the lawyer said quoting his client.

Shishir Manir said Mojaheed has told the lawyers that the prosecution could not place any documents before the courts in support of their claim that he was a commander of Al Badr force that is responsible for killing intellectuals in 1971.

Mojaheed told the lawyers that he was only 23-year-old and a student in 1971 and how he could become a commander of such a paramilitary force like Al Badr, he said.

The lawyer also said there was no mention of Mojaheed’s name in the lists of Al Badr submitted by the investigation officer to the court.

Shishir also said that they will mention these points in the review petition.

The International Crimes Tribunal-1, where Mojaheed and Salauddin were tried for their 1971 crimes, issued execution warrant against them on October 1.