Quasem’s review plea hearing deferred for a month

The Supreme Court on Monday deferred the hearing on a petition filed by war criminal Mir Quasem Ali against the apex court’s judgement that upheld his death penalty, until August 24.

A four-member bench headed by chief justice SK Sinha set the fresh schedule after the hearing in the morning.

Earlier on June 21, the vacation court of the Appellate Division posted hearing of the petition of Mir Quasem for today.

The Supreme Court’s vacation ends on July 11. On June 19, Mir Quasem filed the review petition seeking his acquittal. Mir Quasem is housed in a condemned cell of the Dhaka Central Jail.

Earlier, the apex court upheld his death penalty handed by the International Crimes Tribunal-2 finding him guilty of abducting teenage freedom fighter Jasim Uddin and subjecting him to torture in custody before murdering him.

The apex court had also upheld various jail terms handed to Mir Quasem by the ICT-2 on six other war crimes charges.

The ICT-2 found Mir Quasem guilty of abetting and ordering 14 war crimes in the port city of Chittagong as the leader of the notorious Al-Badr force.

In the review petition Mir Quasem submitted that he felt aggrieved over the apex court verdict upholding his death penalty despite its observation that the prosecution had brought ‘defective charges’ against him.

In the interest of justice, he said, the apex court should order his retrial.

In the petition he submitted that it was an error on the part of the apex court to uphold his death sentence for his direct involvement with Jashim’s murder though he was handed death sentence by the trial court for abetting the murder.