Gulam Rabbani :
A legal question has been raised relating to the confining the death row convicts in the condemn cells of the jail before attaining finality of their sentence by the country’s highest court.
It is because many of the death row convicts are commuted from the higher sentence to the lower sentence at the end of the day.
After the pronouncement of a death sentence the trial court has to submit the proceedings to the High Court Division for its confirmation. If the High Court Division confirms or imposes a sentence of death, an appeal may be filed with the Appellate Division.
The Appellate Division has the power to review its own judgment and a death convict can seek review of the apex court’s decision. Finally he/she can submit a petition of mercy to the President and the sentence shall not be executed until the President rejects the mercy petition..
To complete all these proceedings it takes 10-15 years or more than that in our country. But the death row convicts are taken to the condemn cells just after the trail court proceedings.
However, it is seen that many of the death row convicts are acquitted later by the High Court or Appellate Divisions of the Supreme Court or their sentences are
being commuted. That means many people have to stay in condom cells unnecessarily due to the delay in the trial system.
Shukur Ali, Nuruddin Sentu, Azanur Rahman, Mamun Hossain and Kamrul Islam were sentenced to death by a Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal in Kushtia on February 4 in 2009 in a case filed for abduction, rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl.
After the verdict all the five convict were kept in the Kushtia district jail’s condemned cell as per rule. The apex court, nevertheless, recently commuted the death sentence of three convicted persons and ordered to transfer them to the regular cell from the condemned cell of the jail. But in the meantime they passed 12 years in the condemned cell.
Challenging the trial court conviction, the accused filed appeal petitions and upon hearing the High Court in 2014 upheld the sentence.
In the meantime, one of the convicted persons, Kamrul, died and remaining four convicts filed appeal with the Appellate Division challenging the High Court judgment.
After hearing on the appeal petitions, the Appellate Division on August 18 in 2021 affirmed the death penalty of Shukur Ali and commuted death sentences of three others to life imprisonment in the case filed in 2004.
The Appellate Division of the SC also asked the jail authorities to shift the three convicts, Nuruddin Sentu, Azanur Rahman and Mamun Hossain, whose death sentences were commuted, in the regular cell from the condemn cell.
A five-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain delivered the verdict after hearing separate appeal petitions filed by the convicts challenging the High Court judgment that confirmed their death sentences in the case.
According to a Supreme Court statistics as of September 14 this year a total of 2153 death row convicts are confined in the condemn cells of the 68 jails across the country.
Recently three other death row convicts, Zillur Rahman, Md Abdul Basir and Md Shah Alam, filed a with petition with the High Court seeking its direction upon the respondents to release them from death cell and to keep them with inmates in separate arrangement, providing with facilities of sports, exercise and other regular facilities until their order of sentences attain finality by judicial and administrative forums. They also prayed to the court to issue a ruling upon the respondents to explain as to why the actions of the respondents confining them in death cell as death row convict before attaining finality of their sentence by the judicial and administrative forums shall not be declared illegal.
Upon hearing the petition the High Court bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Md Mostafizur Rahman sought a report on the types of facilities provided to the convicted inmates incarcerated in condemned and other cells in jails across the country.
The court directed Attorney General AM Amin Uddin to submit the report obtaining information from the concerned jail authorities. The court adjourned the hearing on the petition till October 31.
Former Law Minister Barrister Shafique Ahmed said, “At the time of appeal in the higher judiciary the convicts may submit petition to be kept themselves out of the condom cells before the trial get its finality. In that case the court can take it into consideration.”
