SC to hold hearing on Sayedee’s plea Sunday

The Supreme Court will hold hearing on Sunday on the review petitions filed against its verdict that commuted death sentence of convicted war criminal Delawar Hossain Sayedee to imprisonment until death.

The petitions have been included as item No. 30 in the cause list of a five-member bench of the Appellate Division of the SC, headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, for hearing on Sunday.

The government and Sayedee filed two separate review petitions with the apex court in January last year with different prayers. The government in its petition sought death penalty for Sayedee for his war crimes during the 1971 Liberation War, while Sayedee, a leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, in his plea prayed for acquittal of the war crimes charges.

The International Crimes Tribunal-1 on February 28, 2014, sentenced Sayedee to death for killing Ibrahim Kutti and one Bisa Bali in Pirojpur in 1971, even though it had found him guilty of eight charges.

After hearing two appeals filed by Sayedee and the government, on September 17, 2014, a five-member bench of the apex court, headed by the then Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain, delivered a short order based on majority views, commuting Sayedee's death sentence to imprisonment until death.

On April 6 this year, the apex court fixed May 14 [Sunday] for hearing the review petitions.

The Appellate Division has so far settled the review petitions of convicted war criminals Abdul Quader Mollah, Muhammad Kamaruzzaman, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, Motiur Rahman Nizami and Mir Quasem Ali against its verdicts that had confirmed their death sentences.

Source: thedailystar