The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the death penalty for two persons, clearing the way for their execution in a case filed for killing Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) president Kazi Aref Ahmed and four others in 1999.
The Appellate Division of the SC passed the order after dismissing two review petitions filed by the condemned convicts — Rashedul Islam alias Jhantu and Anwar Hossain alias Anwar — challenging its verdict that had sentenced them to death in the case in 2012.
On February 16, 1999, an armed gang killed Kazi Aref, Kushtia district unit JSD president Lokman Hossain and its general secretary Yakub Ali, and local JSD leaders Shamsher Ali and Israil Hossain at a rally in Kalidaspur village of Kushtia’s Daulatpur upazila.
After yesterday’s order, Additional Attorney General Momtaz Uddin Fakir told The Daily Star that the convicts can now seek presidential mercy to save themselves.
“If they don’t get the clemency, the jail authorities can hang them as per the jail code,” he said.
Khandker Mahbub Hossain, chief counsel for the convicts, told this correspondent that after receiving the SC order, the lower court will issue death warrants for Rashedul and Anwar.
The jail authorities would execute them between 21 and 28 days after getting the death warrants, he said.
On August 30, 2004, Fazlur Rahman, the then additional district and sessions judge in Kushtia, pronounced death sentences for 10 people and life-term imprisonment for 12 others for the killings.
On August 5 in 2008, the High Court acquitted one of the condemned convicts and upheld the death penalty for nine others. The court also exempted 12 lifers from the killing charge.
Rashedul and Anwar, who are now in prison, lodged the review petitions with the SC after it had upheld the HC judgment on August 7, 2011.
Seven others on death row are now on the run.
Source: The Daily Star