SC upholds Kamaruzzaman’s death

FE News Desk | Published: November 04, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

Mohammad Kamaruzzaman

The apex court confirmed Monday the death sentence to Jamaat-e-Islami leader Muhammad Kamaruzzaman on one of the two charges of wartime crimes that had earned him the capital punishment.
His family decided to file a review petition for acquittal from all the charges on which he was convicted by the International Crimes Tribunal and endorsed by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court.
"We'll file a review petition after receiving copy of the Supreme Court's verdict," Kamaruzzaman's son, Hasan Iqbal, told reporters in a choked voice after SC judgment.
Meanwhile, Jamaat extended its series shutdowns by calling hartal also for tomorrow (Wednesday), the lone day of this week earlier left out of any sort of closure, following Monday's verdict on Kamaruzzaman's appeal.
The party, however, curtailed Monday's strike by 12 hours in view of holy 'Ashura'. Today is a public holiday for the religious occasion.
Jamaat called hartal for last Thursday and Sunday-Monday after the party chief, Motiur Rahman Nizami, was sentenced to death by the tribunal Wednesday.
With the latest strike call, as many as ten days in a row fall in a cycle of closures on normal business, academic activities and road transportation on different scales.
Among the closures are four weekly holidays, one public holiday and five days' hartal.
Country's business community expressed concern over the return of strikes that particularly disrupted trade and transportation activities.
"The recurrence of hartal will create an adverse impact on the country's economy. Destructive programme like hartal will push the country's economy into uncertainty," said the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI).
"The business community of the country is worried about it," the apex trade body said in a statement Monday and called for calling off the shutdown. A four-member AD bench headed by Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha delivered the appeal verdict at 9:10am.
Reports by agencies said on May 9 last year, the International Crimes Tribunal-2 sentenced Kamaruzzaman, one of the key organisers of the Al-Badr force, to death on two charges.
The twin charges are the killing of 164 civilians and raping several women at Sohagpur and the killing Golam Mostafa at Gridda Narayanpur village during the Liberation War in 1971.
The apex court upheld the first by majority verdict while commuted the highest penalty to life imprisonment in the second one.
Legal experts said the Jamaat senior assistant secretary- general's execution now depends on the release of the full text of the SC verdict.
The jail authorities will start the process of his execution after getting the certified copy of the verdict. As per jail code, the authorities execute condemned convicts after 21 and before 28 days from the day of receiving the order on confirmation of death sentence.
In its verdict, the apex court also commuted the life-term- imprisonment ruling of the ICT-2 and acquitted Kamaruzzaman of killing Badiuzzaman at Ramnagar village in Sherpur.
The SC upheld the tribunal's life-in-prison verdict for Kamaruzzaman for killing Zahurul Islam Dara and five others on Gopalganj Road in Mymensingh. The ten-year-jail imprisonment given by the tribunal for inhumanely torturing Syed Abdul Hannan was upheld at the apex court.
One of the reports quoted some prominent legal experts as saying that the jail authorities "will now start the process for executing the verdict on receiving the death warrant to be issued by the ICT-2".