The High Court on Wednesday accepted appeals of 15 condemned convicts, including Nur Hossain and three sacked Rab-11 officials, challenging the their death penalty in the Narayanganj seven-murder cases.
An HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Shahidul Karim accepted the petitions and stayed a lower court order fining the convicts until the disposal of the appeals.
Advocate SM Shahjahan and Advocate Lutfur Rahman Akando stood for the petitioners while deputy attorney general Farhad Ahmed represented the state.
The 15 condemned convicts are Nur Hossain, a former councillor of Narayanganj City Corporation, three sacked RAB-11 officials – Lt Col Tareque Sayeed Mohammad, Maj Arif Hossain and Lt Commander M Masud Rana–, Habildar Emdadul Haq, Lance Nayek Belal Hossain, sepoy Abu Tayeb, constable Shihab Uddin, SI Purnendu Bala, sepoy Asaduzzaman Nur, Nur Hossain’s associates Mortaza Zaman Churchill, Ali Mohammad, Mizanur Rahman, Raham Ali and Abul Bashar.
Earlier on January 16, a Narayanganj court sentenced 26 people, including the three sacked RAB officers, to death and nine others to different jail terms in the sensational seven-murder cases.
On April 27 in 2014, seven persons, including councilor Nazrul Islam of Narayanganj City Corporations (NCC), Advocate Chandan Sarker, were abducted from Dhaka-Narayanganj Link Road.
The bodies of six of them were recovered from the Shitalakhya River three days after the abduction, while another from the same river the next day.
