Mir Quasem wants time to decide on seeking presidential clemency

The Kashimpur jail authorities read out the verdict of his review petition to death row war criminal Mir Quasem Ali on Wednesday morning.
The 63-year-old Jamaat-e-Islami leader, who now in a condemned cell of the Kashimpur Central Jail Part- 2, heard the review verdict around 7:30am, said the jail superintendent, Prosanta Kumar Bonik.
Mir Quasem sought time to think whether he will seek presidential clemency or not, officials said.
Earlier, copy of the 29-page verdict of the apex court reached the Kashimpur Central Jail Part- 2 around 12:50am.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed Mir Quasem Ali’s petition seeking review of its verdict upholding his death sentence for war crimes.
Rejection of his review petition by a five-judge bench chaired by Chief Justice SK Sinha paved the way for Mir Quasem’s execution.
As a notorious Al-Badr commander in 1971, Mir Quasem committed various war crimes in the port city of Chittagong and particularly at a torture cell he ran in the Dalim Hotel.
He was sentenced to death for abducting and killing teenage freedom fighter Jasim Uddin in confinement at Dalim Hotel based torture cell and dumping his body in the Karnaphuli River.
In recent years he emerged as a business and media tycoon and ran business establishments of Jamaat.
Copies of the review verdict had been sent to the International Crimes Tribunal-1 and the office of Dhaka district magistrate, Supreme Court Registrar general Syed Aminul Islam said on Tuesday.
On receipt of the verdict’s copy at 6:15pm, ICT-1 officials said that they immediately forwarded it to the Dhaka Central Jail.
Dhaka Central Jail received the copy of the apex court’s verdict at 9:05pm and immediately sent it to the Kashimpur Central Jail Part 2, said Dhaka Central Jail senior superintendent Md Jahangir Kabir.
On March 8, the same bench of the Appellate Division had rejected Mir Quasem’s appeal against his death sentence handed by the ICT-2 on November 2, 2014 finding him guilty of abducting, torturing and murdering teenage freedom fighter Jasim Uddin at Al-Badr’s torture centre at Dalim Hotel.
The apex court upheld Mir Quasem’s death sentence only for Jasim’s murder.
It set aside Mir Quasem’s death sentence on the charge of abducting and torturing five persons and killing two of them, Tuntu Sen and Ranjit Das Latu, at Dalim Hotel and their houses were set on fire in November 1971.
The apex court upheld six sentences handed to Mir Quasem by the ICT-2 each for 20-year jail for abducting and torturing freedom fighters and pro-independence people in confinement.
The apex court set aside two other sentences involving jail for various terms handed to Mir Quasem by the ICT-2.
Until now, 24 war offenders have been sentenced to death and 18 others to jail of various terms.
Mir Quasem would be the sixth top war criminal to die.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net