Nizami, Mir Quashem appeals in cause list

The appeal pleas of condemned war crimes convicts Maulana Matiur Rahman Nizami and Mir Quashem Ali were brought in the cause list of the Appellate Division for August 18, Supreme Court sources said on Tuesday. They said Mir Quashem Ali’s case is at the 3rd place while Nizami’s case is at the 10th place of Tuesday’s cause list. Mir Qushem’s case was brought in the Bangladesh Supreme Court cause list for hearing while Nizami's case was brought for sentencing. A four-member Appellate Division (AD) bench, headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, will hold the hearing and pass the order of the appeal pleas. Three other members in the AD bench are, Justice Nazmun Ara Sultana, Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain and Justice Hasan Foyez Siddique. On May 28, the AD ordered the prosecution and defendant to submit the synopsis of Mir Quashem’s appeal plea within four weeks while on February 24, it ordered to submit Nizami’s appeal synopsis by two weeks. On October 29 in 2014, the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT)-1 sentenced Jamaat-e-Islami leader Matiur Rahman Nizami to death for his crimes against humanity during Bangladesh’s independence struggles in 1971. On November 2 of that year, the ICT-2 awarded death sentence to Mir Quashem for his wartime offences, according to a news agency.
- mbz