Bangladesh's apex court upholds top opposition leader's death penalty

Bangladesh's apex court has upheld the death penalty for a top opposition party leader for war crimes including mass killings during the country's war of independence 43 years ago.

A four-member bench of the Supreme Court (SC) bench headed by Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha delivered the verdict on Wednesday morning, upholding the death penalty against the 65-year old Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury.

The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT)-2 in October 2013 awarded death sentence to the leader, who is now behind the bar.

Justice ATM Fazle Kabir, head judge of ICT-1, had then announced that nine out of 23 charges, which include mass killings, murder, genocide and conspiracy to kill intellectuals during the country's Liberation War in 1971, against the 64-year-old leader were proved beyond reasonable doubt.

Defense lawyer Khandaker Mahbub Hossain told journalists shortly after the announcement of the verdict on Wednesday morning that they will file a review petition with the SC.

The judgment was, however, greeted with huge relief in and outside the courtroom.

Talking to media, Attorney General Mahbub-e-Alam, among others, expressed satisfaction with the verdict against the accused.

This was the first time that the SC delivered verdict on war crimes charges against a member of the parliament and leader of the BNP headed by ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, a rival of current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Security has been beefed up in places in Dhaka and Chittagong, some 242 km southeast of the capital city. Paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) troops have been deployed to thwart any untoward incident after the verdict against Chowdhury, member of BNP's Standing Committee, the highest policy-making body of the party.

In April 2012 Chowdhury was indicted on the charges of genocide, murders, abductions, torture in confinement, loot, arson attacks and complicity in other atrocities committed in Chittagong in 1971.

In his closing arguments in the case, Defense counsel AKM Fakhrul Islam claimed that the prosecution failed to prove the charges and expressed the hope that his client would be acquitted.

Son of the then Convention Muslim League party leader Fazlul Qader Chowdhury, Salauddin Quader Chowdhury was elected MP from different constituencies in Chittagong since 1979.

Chowdhury's father, who actively opposed the creation of independent Bangladesh and allegedly committed war crimes, died at jail when his trial was going on.

Fazlul Qader Chowdhury was also a speaker of Pakistan National Assembly and Acting President of Pakistan from time to time before the independence of Bangladesh.

Salauddin Quader Chowdhury was a lawmaker and minister in General Hussain Mohammad Ershad's government in the 1980s. He quit former military strongman's Jatiya Party in the second half of the 1980s and founded his own party.

In 1996, Chowdhury and his National Democratic Party took part in the then opposition Bangladesh Awami League party-led movement against the then BNP government that saw the introduction of non- party caretaker government for holding parliamentary polls.

Later, he joined BNP and was elected to parliament on its tickets.

The latest verdict came about three months after Muhammad Kamaruzzaman, a Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party leader convicted of war crimes, was executed in April, the second execution for crimes against humanity committed during the country's war of independence in 1971.

Another Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Molla, convicted of war crimes in 1971, was executed on Dec. 12, 2013.

Both BNP and Jamaat have dismissed the court as a government " show trial" and said it is a domestic set-up without the oversight or involvement of the United Nations.

Muslim-majority Bangladesh was called East Pakistan until 1971. The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said about 3 million people were killed in the 9-month war.

After returning to power in January 2009, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Bangladesh's independence hero Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, established the first tribunal in March 2010, almost 40 years after the 1971 fight for independence from Pakistan.