Kamaruzzaman asks defence for filing review petition

Death row convict Muhammad Kamaruzzaman today asked his counsels to file a review petition with the Supreme Court challenging its verdict that upheld the Jamaat-e-Islami leader’s death penalty in a war crimes case.

Mohammad Shishir Manir, a counsel for Kamaruzzaman, confirmed it to The Daily Star after meeting him at the gate of Dhaka Central Jail this morning.

The four other counsels who met Kamaruzzaman at the jail gate are Tajul Islam, Ehsan A Siddiq, Moshiul Alam and Matiur Rahman Akand.

Earlier, the five lawyers went to the jail and talked to him for 31 minutes from 10:37am.

Manir said their client is mentally and physically well and is not worried at the SC judgment that upheld the verdict of International Crimes Tribunal-2 sentencing him to death for his crimes against humanity during the country’s Liberation War in 1971.

Claiming Kamaruzzaman innocent, the defence lawyer said he was not involved in any kind of offences leveled against him.

The defence will file the review petition in 15 days from February 19, the day when Kamaruzzaman was informed about the release of full text of the apex court verdict, said the lawyer.

Meanwhile, Kamaruzzaman family members will also meet him at the jail gate later in the day after getting permission from the prison authorities.

The lawyers met with the Jamaat leader two days after ICT-2 issued an execution of death warrant against him in a war crimes case.

The tribunal issued the warrant after receiving the full text of the Supreme Court verdict that upheld the death penalty of Kamaruzzaman for his crimes against humanity during 1971.

Assistant secretary general of Jamaat, Kamaruzzaman was handed capital punishment for committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971.

Copies of the death warrant, wrapped in red cloth, were sent to Dhaka district magistrate, prison authorities and secretaries to the ministries of home and law, said Mustafizur Rahman, registrar at the tribunal.

The prison authorities later on the day read out the death warrant to the condemned war criminal.

On May 9, 2013, the tribunal-2 found Kamaruzzaman guilty of five out of the seven charges brought against him and sentenced him to death on two charges- life term on two and 10 years' jail on another. He was acquitted of two counts of war crimes.

He had challenged this verdict with the SC, which on November 3 last year upheld the death penalty for the mass killing at Sohagpur in Sherpur on July 25, 1971.