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Commute death penalty of Huda, Mohiuddin

Counsel urges SC

Ashutosh Sarkar
A counsel for convicts in Bangabandhu murder case yesterday pleaded with the Supreme Court to commute his clients' death sentence to life imprisonment.
Abdullah-al Mamun, the lawyer for Bazlul Huda and ARM Mohiuddin, however maintained the two were not involved in the August 15 bloodbath.
He said they have been suffering agonising pain in the condemned cell for around 14 years due to delay resulting from some judges' feeling embarrassed to hear the case.
Citing a constitutional provision, he said executing them after al) these years in jail would be inhuman and cruel.
Mamun was making submissions for ARM Mohiuddin before the five-member Appellate Division bench hearing appeals by five convicts. He said the convicts have long been on death row for something they have nothing to do with.
Citing article 35(5) of the constitution and precedents of the Privy Council of England, Jamaica and
Trinidad, Mamun said the death sentence should not stand.
Article 35(5) states that no person shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment or treatment.
The court said the argument does not apply to Mohiuddin because he has not been in the condemned cell for that long a period.
He had been on the run before the trial court delivered the verdict, and brought back to Bangladesh in 2007, added the bench.
Mamun replied that he meant Bazlul Huda, who has been in the condemned cell since the verdict w as delivered in 1998. The court at that point said he (Mamun) had already concluded his submissions for Huda.
Five condemned convicts in the case -dismissed army personnel Syed Farooqur Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Muhiuddin Ahmed, AKM Mohiuddin and Bazlul Huda-are now behind bars.
Four of them were caught during the last Awami League rule. AKM Mohiuddin was brought back from the US in June 2007 by the caretaker government.
Quoting from confessional statements of convict Syed Farooqur Rahman, Mamun said Mohiuddin was not present at the Bangabandhu resi dence on August 15,1975, and neither was he involved in any conspiracy.
He said that the day before the carnage Farooq incited his colleagues, saying Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, then president of the republic, would proclaim monarchy and cede the country to India.
Farooq also told them they would topple the government of Sheikh Mujib and establish an Islamic republic under the leadership of Khandaker Mustaque Ahmed.
Besides, he [Farooq] said Bangabandhu would be taken to the cantonment so he could not make any announcement.
Prodded, a band of army men attacked the Dhanmondi house-32 and killed Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and others the following day.
Mamun however said statements by other convicts and witnesses do not bear out Farooq's statement.
Mohiuddin in his statement said their goal was to have Mujib stand trial, not to kill him, and there was no conspiracy. Mamun argued.
If they had planned to kill Bangabandhu. they would not have brought him downstairs. They would have killed him immediately on the first floor, he added.
The court said the points raised by Mamun had already been put down at the High Court.
Adjourning the hearing till 9:30am Sunday, the SC bench told the defence lawyer he would be allowed an hour more to wrap up his arguments.