SQ Chy to walk gallows

Condemned war crimes convict Salauddin Quader Chowdhury will walk the gallows as the Supreme Court in the final verdict has confirmed the death penalty of the first international crimes tribunal. The four-strong appeals bench, headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, pronounced the final judgment around 9:00am on Wednesday.
On October 1, 2013, the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT)-1 sentenced SQ Chowdhury to death for genocide and deadly torture of people in Chittagong during Bangladesh's independence struggles in 1971.
There was general expectation that the top appeal court would uphold the tribunal's verdict, which Chowdhury challenged on October 29, 2013. The Appellate Division (AD) bench earlier this month set July 29 to deliver the verdict. The case was at the top of Wednesday's business agenda of the apex court. This is the fifth case that reached its end at the AD, after the tribunal started trying war criminals from 2010. SQ Chowdhury, who was arrested on December 16 the same year, was brought to Dhaka Central Jail-1 from Kashimpur Jail in Gazipur amid tight security. The tribunal found him guilty of murdering Kundeshwari Oushadhalaya owner Nutan Chandra Singha, genocide of Hindus at Sultanpur and Unosattar Para, and abduction and murder of a Hathazari Awami League leader and his son Sheikh Alamgir. Nine of the 23 charges of war crimes levelled by the prosecution against SQ Chowdhury, who was works minister during HM Ershad’s regime in ’80s and a BNP MP when he was arrested in 2010, were proved. Out of the total 23 allegations, SQ Chowdhury was acquitted of eight charges while the prosecution failed to prove six, according to a news agency.

- mbz