The Supreme Court (SC) upheld death sentence of condemned war criminal Mir Quasem Ali, rejecting his plea challenging the punishment for his crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971.A five-member SC bench headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha pronounced the verdict on Tuesday.The four other judges of the bench were Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain, Justice Hasan Foez Siddique, Justice Mirza Hussain Haider and Justice Mohammad Bazlur Rahman.Earlier on February 24, the appellate division, after hearing both the government and the appellant sides, posted for March 8 the pronouncement of its verdict in the appeal filed by condemned Mir Quasem against his death sentence.The International Crimes Tribunal-2 had sentenced Mir Quasem Ali, Al-Badr boss in the port city of Chittagong in 1971, to death on November 2, 2014.He had appealed to the Appellate Division against the tribunal’s verdict on November 30. The Appellate Division started hearing the appeal on February 9, 2016.Mir Quasem’s counsel Khandker Mahbub Hossain said as a lawyer he accepted the court verdict. He said he would consult his client and take decision on filing review petition seeing the full verdict.The International Crimes Tribunal verdict had said Quasem was the ‘leader’ and de facto Al-Badr Bahini commander at its Dalim Hotel camp in the port city where freedom fighters and pro-liberation people were detained, tortured and slaughtered.It called Dalim Hotel the ‘death factory’ and ‘criminal enterprise’ of Al-Badr Bahini and Quasem its ‘ring leader’ and ‘boss’.Quasem has been detained in jail since his arrest on June 17, 2012 at daily Naya Diganta office at Motijheel on war crimes charges.