Staff Reporter :
The High Court (HC) on Monday confirmed death for 139 convicts out of 152 convicts who were given capital punishment by the lower court in Pilkhana carnage case.
The HC also gave life term imprisonment to 185 accused and jailed other 200 accused for different terms and acquitted 45 accused.
The trial court gave death sentences to 150 BDR soldiers and two civilians, and jailed 160 others for life for their roles and involvement in the carnage. It also handed down rigorous imprisonment to 256 people, mostly BDR soldiers.
The court acquitted the remaining 277 accused, but the government later appealed against the acquittal of 69 of them.
The trial court passed the judgment after examining 654 out of 1,354 prosecution witnesses in the biggest criminal case in the history of the country.
Among the lower court’s death convicts, the HC commuted death of eight to life-term imprisonment and acquitted four others. Another death row convict died earlier.
The HC upheld the life term imprisonment of 146 out of 160 convicts who were given the punishment by the lower court. Among the rest life term convicts, the HC acquitted 12 and two life term convicts died earlier.
Among the 256 convicts of different jail terms by the lower court, the HC gave jail to 184 accused for 10 years, to 8 accused for 7 years, to 4 accused for 3 years and acquitted 29 accused. 28 convicts did not appeal to the High Court and 3 died earlier.
The HC gave life term imprisonment to another 31 accused and jailed to 4 accused for 7 years considering appeal petitions by the government against 69 accused out of 277 who were acquitted by the lower court. The HC also dismissed 34 appeals by the government.
A three-member Special Bench headed by Justice Md Shawkat Hossain announced the judgement. The other two members of the bench are Justice Md Abu Zafor Siddique and Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder.
The bench started announcing the judgement on Sunday and completed it on Monday. Before announcing the main part of the judgement the judges of the HC bench gave some important observations in the sensational case of 2009 BDR carnage.
Presiding judge Justice Md Shawkat Hossain said, all the three judges are unanimous in the judgement.
Seventy-four people, including 57 army officials, were massacred in the BDR mutiny on February 25-26 in 2009 in the Pilkhana Headquarters of the paramilitary force, later renamed Border Guard Bangladesh.
The death reference and the appeals of the convicts were filed with the HC months after a Dhaka Court announced the verdict on November 5, 2013.
The HC started hearing the death reference and appeals of the convicts in January, 2015. After 370 days hearing on the matter the High Court on April 13 in 2017, kept the judgment on CAV (Curia Advisari Vult). The court also rejected three pleas of the State to increase the terms of sentences of the convicts on that day.
