War crimes convict and Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali yesterday filed a petition with the Supreme Court seeking two-month adjournment in hearing of his review petition that sought reconsideration of his death penalty in war crimes cases. The apex court in its Monday’s cause list included both the review and time petitions as item number 63 as it is scheduled to start the review petition today.
After filing a time petition, Barrister Mir Ahmed Bin Quasem, son of Mir Quasem, told reporters that his father submitted the petition before the apex court seeking more time in hearing of his review petition. In the petition, the
principal defence counsel Advocate Khandaker Mahbub Hossain said he needed two months time in preparing the arguments for taking part in the review hearing.
A five-member SC bench headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha is scheduled to hear the time petition as well as the review petition today (Monday). Earlier, on June 21, in response to a government plea, the Chamber Judge of the Appellate Division Justice Hasan Foez Siddique fixed July 25 for hearing on the matter at the full bench of the Appellate Division.
On June 19, death-row convict Mir Quasem Ali filed the review petition with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court seeking reconsideration of its verdict that had upheld his death penalty handed down by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) for committing crimes against humanity during the country’s War of Liberation in 1971.
Barrister Mir Ahmed Bin Quasem submitted the review petition with the related branch of the Supreme Court seeking acquittal in all seven charges for which the Jamaat leader was awarded death penalty.
In the 86-page petition, 14 grounds have been mentioned based on which the SC may consider the review petition.
Defence counsel Advocate Khandker Mahbub Hossain, at a press briefing, claimed that the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) had convicted the Jamaat’s central executive council leader based on unverified statements of prosecution witnesses.
On June 6, the ICT issued a death warrant for the Jamaat-e-Islami leader hours after the Supreme Court released the full text of its verdict upholding his death penalty. Earlier, on 8 March, the Appellate Division upheld the death penalty for Mir Quasem for his crimes against humanity committed during the Liberation War.
The ICT-2 in a verdict had sentenced Mir Quasem Ali, Al-Badr chief in the port city of Chittagong in 1971, to death on November 2, 2014. On November 30, 2014, Mir Quasem filed an appeal with the SC challenging the death penalty. Among the total 14 charges brought against Mir Quasem for war crimes, the tribunal convicted him on 10 counts of charges and acquitted him in four.
The 64-year-old top Jamaat-e-Islami leader, Mir Quasem, is considered by many as the main financier of the Jamaat.
He allegedly paid $25 million to an American lobbyist firm to carry out a smear campaign to make the war crimes trial controversial, the then law minister Shafique Ahmed told parliament on April 28, 2013.
 He was kept at Kashimpur jail in Gazipur since his arrest in 2013 and was shifted to Dhaka Central Jail from Gazipur on June 20.