DHAKA: Convicted war criminal Jamaat leader ATM Azharul Islam on Sunday (July 19) filed a review petition with the Supreme Court against death penalty for his crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.
A 23-page review petition based on 14 grounds praying for reconsideration of death sentence has been filed with the relevant branch of the Supreme Court, said his lawyer Mohammad Shishir Monir.
On October 31 last year, the Appellate Division upheld his death sentence pronounced by the International Crimes Tribunal-1 on December 30 in 2014.
The certified copy of the verdict was released by SC administration on March 15.
Azharul Islam, 67, is now at Kashimpur Jail in Gazipur. He was the commander of notorious Al-Badr force and president of Chhatra Sangha, the then student wing of anti-liberation party Jamaat.
He was involved in mass killing, looting, arson attack and other crimes against humanity in Rangpur during the country’s Liberation War.
Azhar along with activists of Jamaat’s former student wing Chhatra Sangha and the occupation Pakistan army attacked villages around Jharhuar Beel on April 17, 1971.
They torched and looted houses and killed over 1,200 Hindus. Another 200 Hindus were killed at an undisclosed location. The incident is said to be the single biggest act of genocide during the war in which Bangalee freedom fighters routed the Pakistani army and its collaborators.
BDST: 1945 HRS, JULY 19, 2020
AP/SMS
