Bangladesh war crimes: South Carolina upholds BNP leader’s death sentence

The court has “maintained” the death sentence for genocide and torture against 66-year-old Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, the first Hindu to head the top court in the country said, upholding a 2013 verdict by the worldwide Crimes Tribunal.

On 1 October, 2013, the global Crimes Tribunal-1 found the BNP leader guilty of crimes against humanity during the War of Liberation and condemned him to death.

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

Bangladesh’s Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the death sentence for the influential opposition leader and an aide to a former prime minister Khaleda Zia for his role in mass killings during the country’s independence war against Pakistan in 1971.

Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told reporters he was “satisfied” with the verdict.

Security has been beefed up in places in Dhaka and Chittagong, some 242 km southeast of the capital city. The tribunal indicted him on April 4, 2012.

The lawyer alleged that the prosecution witnesses gave a false deposition against his client. His father was also a former speaker of Pakistan and served as an acting president several times.

Salauddin Quader Chowdhury was a lawmaker and minister in General Hussain Mohammad Ershad’s government in the 1980s.

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. He was later elected as the region’s representative to parliament six times.

Bangladesh has already executed two of the death sentences for Abdul Quader Molla and Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami party. Sarker said: “We are happy with the court’s decision”.

Jamaat-e-Islami is the third largest political party in Bangladesh but most of its membership were allegedly militia commanders accused of committing war crimes and have been sentenced to death. It is estimated that almost 3 million people were killed in the nine-month Bangladesh Liberation War that ended in December 1971.

After the partition of India in 1947 and until 1971, Bangladesh was known as East Pakistan.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina set up the tribunal in 2010 to punish the collaborators.