As per procedure, sources said death-row war criminals would be asked whether they would seek presidential clemency.
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Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, 67, secretary general of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was found guilty of five charges including torture and the murders of intellectuals and minority Hindus while he commanded Al Badr, an auxiliary force of the Pakistani army, during the war to break away from Pakistan. Sentenced to die for war crimes, SQ Chowdhury on October 14 filed the review petition to the SC seeking acquittal on all the charges levelled against him.
Khandaker Mahbub Hossain, principal counsel for both Mujahid and Chowdhury, told journalists that they would seek a chance to authorities of the Dhaka Central Jail, where they had been kept, to meet their clients.
Separately, unidentified gunmen shot and wounded an Italian priest in northern Bangladesh on Wednesday, just weeks after two foreigners were killed in similar attacks blamed on hardliners, police said.
No one has yet claimed responsibility, but it bore the hallmarks of previous attacks on foreigners that were claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.
They are among more than a dozen leaders of the opposition alliance who were convicted by a controversial war crimes tribunal set up by the secular government in 2010. They declined to seek clemency from the president.
The convictions have triggered the country’s deadliest violence since independence, with a few 500 people killed, mainly in clashes between Jamaat activists and police.
Jamaat has issued a statement calling a nationwide strike tomorrow to protest the verdict.
Shortly after the court verdict was announced, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Authority blocked social media sites including Facebook, Viber and WhatsApp for an indefinite period to stop any propaganda that could trigger violence in the country, a government official said.
The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, set up by the US Congress, has expressed “serious concerns” over the death penalties.
No Peace Without Justice, a non-profit organisation based in Italy, has called the tribunal’s proceedings “a weapon of politically influenced revenge whose real aim is to target the political opposition”.
The government denies the accusations.
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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 1971 war.
