The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court yesterday deferred to May 3 the hearing on a review petition filed by war crimes convict and Jamaat chief Motiur Rahman Nizami. The Jamaat leader filed the petition seeking review of a supreme court judgement that upheld his death penalty awarded by the International Crimes Tribunal for wartime offences. In response to a time petition moved by Nizami’s lawyer Advocate Khandakar Mahbub Hossain, the four-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar  Sinha deferred the hearing till the date. Hossain prayed to the apex court to shift the date for hearing citing his personal difficulties. Earlier on April 3, in response to a six-week time petition filed by Nizami, the same bench deferred the hearing by a week. On March 30, Nizami had filed the review petition with the Supreme Court seeking reconsideration of his death penalty for wartime offences. Nizami filed the petition 14 days after the SC released the full judgment. Barrister Najeeb Momen, son of Nizami, said a 70-page document, citing 46 arguments, has been submitted to the apex court seeking acquittal order.
The SC on January 6 this year upheld the verdict of the International Crimes Tribunal-1 that sentenced Nizami to death for crimes against humanity during the country’s 1971 War of Liberation. Two months later, on March 15, the apex court released the full verdict. The ICT issued a death warrant for him hours after the SC full verdict. The following day, jail authorities read out the judgment before the convict. In October 2014, the ICT-1 handed down capital punishment to Nizami, the leader of the infamous Al-Badr Bahini in 1971, for his wartime offences. So far, verdicts have been handed down against five war criminals in war crimes cases.