NN Online:
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court has concluded the hearing on a review petition filed by Jamaat-e-Islami leader ATM Azharul Islam, who is challenging his death sentence in a war crimes case tied to the 1971 Liberation War.
The verdict is scheduled to be delivered on May 27.
A five-member bench of the Appellate Division, headed by Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed, had earlier accepted Azharul’s petition and set April 22 for the hearing.
Azharul was sentenced to death by the International Crimes Tribunal on December 30, 2014, after being found guilty of leading mass killings, abduction, and torture in the Rangpur region, where more than 1,400 people were killed in 1971.
He filed an appeal against the verdict on January 28, 2015, but the Appellate Division upheld the sentence on October 31, 2019. Following the publication of the full verdict on March 15, 2020, he submitted a review petition, which the Supreme Court agreed to hear.
Azharul was arrested from his residence in Moghbazar on August 22, 2012, on charges of war crimes and has remained in custody since then.
