War Crimes:Bangla SC to hear death row convicts pleas on Nov 2

Bangladesh's Supreme Court will hear on November 2 the pleas of two top opposition leaders, facing execution for war crimes, months after the apex court had upheld their death sentences for committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.
Jamaat-e-Islami's secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and Oppostion Bangladesh Nationalist Party's stalwart Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury had filed the pleas on October 14, seeking review of their death sentences.
"Their petitions for the review of the (Supreme Court's) Appellate Division will be heard on November 2. Chamber judge of the apex court Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain set the date," a spokesman of the attorney general's office told PTI.

Both the convicts, who are in their late 60s, were senior ministers in ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia's BNP-led coalition government with Jamaat being its key partner.
Mujahid, the second man of Jamaat which was opposed to Bangladesh's 1971 independence from Pakistan, was found to be a key mastermind of the massacre of the country's top intelligentsia just ahead of the December 16, 1971 victory.
Chowdhury carried out atrocities particularly at his home district of southeastern Chittagong, siding with the Pakistani troops.

The apex court had upheld their capital punishment in June and July respectively. A special tribunal, formed to expose to justice the Bengali-speaking major collaborators of the Pakistani troops in 1971, had originally handed them the capital punishment.

The apex court, however, published its full verdict in writing on September 30 which required the prison authorities to serve the convicts the death warrants immediately and promoted the two to file the petitions for review of the verdicts.
Chowdhury sought to get testified eight witnesses, including five Pakistanis, in his favour during the review hearing, a plea which most lawyers said was weird at the current stage.
Attorney general Mahbubey Alam said the apex court would decide if it would accept Chowdhury's request to get testified the defence witnesses at this stage but if such strange demand was entertained, other such convicts would might try to follow his footstep to disrupt the trials of the war criminals.

About three million people were killed by the Pakistani army and their Bengali-speaking collaborators during the liberation war when Jamaat was opposed to Bangladesh's independence siding with the Pakistani junta.