Bangladesh SC rejects review petition against death sentence to Mir Quasem

The Supreme Court of Bangladesh  rejected the review petition of death convict war criminal and Jamaat-e-Islami top leader Mir Quasem. A five-member bench of the Appellate Division of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha passed the verdict. The court had heard the petition on Sunday and reserved the judgement.

The International Crimes Tribunal had handed down capital punishment to 63-year old Mir Quasem, a top financier of the outfit in November 2014. The tribunal had found him guilty on 10 charges of war crimes including torture, abduction, killing during the 1971 Liberation War. Mir Quasem functioned as the Al-Badr leader in Chittagong and helped the Pakistan army against Bengali freedom fighters. The Supreme Court had upheld the verdict on March 8th this year.

class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">Mir Quasem is the fifth top Jamaat-e-Islami leader whose death sentence review petition has been rejected by the apex court. The Jamaat leader had been lodged in Kashimpur jail since his arrest in 2012. The International Crime Tribunals were set up by the Sheikh Hasina government in 2010, almost 40 years after the Liberation War which left over 3 million people dead and over 2 lakh women raped. Five war criminals have been executed so far which include 4 Jamaat-e-Islami leaders and one BNP leader.

The Jamaat-e-islami has announced a dawn to dusk countrywide hartal on Wednesday to protest the apex court rejection of the review petition on the death sentence of their leader Mir Quasem.