SC likely to fix date for verdict today

The Supreme Court is expected to conclude hearing today on the appeal filed by war criminal Salauddin Quader Chowdhury challenging his death penalty, and to fix a date for delivering verdict on it, said Attorney General Mahbubey Alam yesterday.

While hearing the appeal for the 12th day yesterday, the SC asked Salauddin's defence lawyer SM Shahjahan to complete his arguments in one hour today.

The apex court is set to resume the hearing at 9:00am today, as the matter has been enlisted as the first item on its hearing list of the day.

Mahbubey Alam told The Daily Star that he will give reply today to some of the arguments placed by Salauddin's lawyer before the SC.

During the 12th day hearing, defence counsel Shahjahan told the apex court that most of the prosecution witnesses had given hear-say statements on the charges brought against Salauddin before the International Crimes Tribunal-1. The statements were not reliable since they didn't corroborate with each other, he claimed.

On July 1, the attorney general prayed before the SC to uphold the death penalty given by the ICT-1 to the BNP leader on October 1, 2013 for committing crimes against humanity and genocide during the Liberation War in 1971.

He appealed to the SC against the verdict on October 29, 2013.