Order to submit summary of SQ Chy’s appeal

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The five-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain on Wednesday asked both the state and the defence counsels to submit the summary by Feb 26.

Zainul Abedin Tuhin, advocate on record for Chowdhury was present in court.

The International Crimes Tribunal-1 on Oct 1 sentenced Chowdhury to death for the murder of Kundeshwari Oushadhalaya owner Natun Chandra Singha in Chittagong’s Raozan and the mass murder of Hindus in Sultanpur and Unosottor Parha during Bangladesh’s Liberation War.

He was also awarded death penalty for abducting and murdering an Awami League leader and his son from Hathazari.

The BNP leader was also sentenced to 20 years in prison for three separate charges of murder, complicity in genocide, loot, arson and deportation.

The verdict said the prosecution had successfully proved nine of the 23 charges framed against the BNP policymaker.

Chowdhury, the only sitting MP to have been convicted of war crimes, filed an appeal on Oct 29 against the ICT verdict.

“We have filed an appeal for acquittal from all charges. We mentioned in our plea that he will be released if justice is served,” his lawyer Tuhin told reporters after filing the appeal.

Khandker Mahbub, also a lawyer for the convict, claimed the verdict was ‘politically motivated’ and Chowdhury has been falsely implicated in the case out of vengeance 42 years after the war.

Attorney General Mahbubey Alam had said that they would not go for a separate appeal, but rather argue against Chowdhury’s appeal.

He was arrested on Dec 16, Victory Day in 2010, in a case filed for torching vehicles during a countrywide strike.

He was shown arrested for war crimes during 1971 on Dec 19.

Source: Bd news24