The Supreme Court is set to hear on Wednesday a petition filed by condemned war criminal Mir Quasem Ali seeking review of its earlier verdict upholding his death penalty for crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971. A four-member bench of the Appellate Division, led by Chief Justice SK Sinha, is likely to hear the review petition which was kept at item number 5 on its cause list.A five-member bench of the Appellate Division was scheduled to hear the petition on July 25. However, it deferred the hearing until August 24 as the defence counsels filed a petition seeking adjournment of the hearing for two months. Earlier on June 20, Chamber Judge of the Appellate Division Justice Hasan Foez Siddique fixed July 25 for hearing the pleas following a petition filed by the state.On June 19, Barrister Mir Ahmed Bin Quasem, son of Mir Quasem, filed a 68-page review petition with the Appellate Division seeking the acquittal of the war criminal. The Supreme Court released the full text of its verdict upholding the death penalty awarded by the International Crimes Tribunal-2 to Mir Quasem Ali for the crimes he committed against humanity during the Liberation War on June 6. On March 8, the Appellate Division upheld the death penalty for Mir Quasem Ali for his war crimes. The International Crimes Tribunal-2 sentenced Mir Quasem Ali, Al-Badr chief in the port city of Chittagong in 1971, to death on November 2, 2014. On November 30, 2014, he filed an appeal before the Supreme Court challenging the death penalty. Top Jamaat-e-Islami financier Quasem, now 64, was president of the Chittagong town unit of the Islami Chhatra Sangha, the then student wing of Jamaat, till November 6, 1971.He was then made general secretary of the East Pakistan Chhatra Sangha.
