The Supreme Court (SC) will deliver its verdict on May 5 on the petition of condemned war criminal Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Matiur Rahman Nizami seeing review of its judgment that upheld the International Crimes Tribunal judgment sentencing him to death.A four-member bench of the Appellate Division of the SC, headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, fixed the date yesterday (Tuesday) after hearing arguments from both the prosecution and defence. Attorney General Mahbubey Alam represented the state while Khandaker Mahbub Hossain stood for the petitioner. Earlier, the petition had been kept at number four in the Appellate Division’s cause list for yesterday (Tuesday) to he heard at the full-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha. On April 10, the SC deferred the hearing until May 3 on the review petition. On March 15, the ICT issued a death warrant for Nizami for his crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971 after the apex court released the full text of its verdict upholding his death penalty. On January 6, a four-member bench of the Appellate Division, headed by Chief Justice SK Sinha, upheld the death sentence of the Jamaat Ameer. The Appellate Division upheld the ICT-1 order sentencing Nizami to death for the wartime crimes, including genocide and murder of intellectuals. The apex court upheld his death for three of the four counts of charges while he was acquitted for the rest one. The SC upheld his life term imprisonment for two charges, out of four in connection with the arrest, detention, torture, and murder of three people, including headmaster Maulana Kasim Uddin of Pabna Zila School on June 4, 1971, complicity in torture, murder and rape at Mohammadpur Physical Training Institute in Dhaka, and murder of Badi, Rumi Jewel and Azad at Old MP Hostel in Dhaka on August 30, 1971.The Appellate Division acquitted the Jamaat leader of two other charges. On October 29, 2014, the ICT-1 sentenced Nizami to death for committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War.The tribunal sentenced Nizami, the 1971 commander-in-chief of Al Badr, a secret killing squad of Jamaate-e-Islami, the capital punishment each on four counts of charges of war crimes, terming Al Badr a criminal outfit.Nizami filed an appeal with the SC on November 23, 2014 challenging the death sentence and claimed himself innocent and sought to be cleared of the charges.
