PRESIDENTIAL CLEMENCY : SQC, Mojaheed keep decision pending [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

PRESIDENTIAL CLEMENCY : SQC, Mojaheed keep decision pending

Local November 21, 2015

The Dhaka Central Jail authority has taken all preparations to execute war crime death row convicts Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed but they are now waiting whether the duo will seek presidential clemency or not.
‘We are waiting to find whether they will seek mercy. We are yet to get any response. We will take relevant measures if that happens,’ home minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters after attending a programme in the capital’s Farmgate.
All preparation for their execution is already complete, he said, adding every step would be taken according to law.
Earlier, the jail authority refused the lawyers of the two war crime convicts to meet them on Friday.
Salauddin’s lawyers Hujjatul Islam al Fesani and Zakaria Eunus failed to submit an application to the jail authority officials after waiting nearly four hours, from 1:45pm to 6:00pm, at the Dhaka Central Jail gate.
The letter stated that Salauddin’s chief defense counsel Khandker Mahbub Hossain and six other lawyers needed to meet their client to give legal opinion on presidential clemency, Hujjatul Islam told New Age.
Salauddin wanted to meet his lawyers said Hajjatul, quoting family members who met him on Thursday.
Hujjatul said the on-duty prison guard on inquiry desk refused to accept the application saying there was no high-up in the jail to receive it.
Mojaheed’s lawyer Gazi MH Tamim told New Age that the jail authorities on the same excuse on Thursday also refused to accept the lawyers’ application for visiting their client on Friday.
The on-duty guard, however, told both of the lawyers that they would be informed if they are allowed to visit the death-row convicts, said lawyers.
The Appellate Division verdicts rejecting the final appeals of Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general Mojaheed and BNP standing committee member Salauddin Quader Chowdhury were signed by the justices and sent to the prison authorities through the International Crimes Tribunal Thursday night.
Senior Jail Superintendent Md Jahangir Kabir received the copies of the verdicts, which were later read out to the two condemned convicts in the presence of top prison officials.
On Thursday, family members of both Salauddin Quader and Mojaheed met them in jail before the top appeals court published the verdicts.
Since Wednesday, when the verdicts were delivered upholding the duo’s death sentences, law-enforcing agencies have imposed tight security in and around Dhaka Central Jail.
Police and members of Rapid Action Battalion were seen posted on alert around the Dhaka central jail.
Jamaat-e-Islami acting amir Makbul Ahmed in a statement on Friday said they would stage protest rallies across the county demanding release of Mojaheed.