Commute Nizami death penalty in B'desh warcrimes trial: Lawyer

Fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami today admitted in Bangladesh's Supreme Court to have committed war crimes during the 1971 independence war against Pakistan but sought commutation of his death penalty to life imprisonment because of his old age.
"It is a historical fact that people were killed and the then Jamaat helped these (atrocities). Motiur Rahman Nizami had supported these (atrocities) out of conviction," 72-year- old Nizami's counsel Khondaker Mahbub Hossain told the court.
The defence counsel urged the court to commute Nizami's sentence, originally handed down by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in October 2014, "on grounds of old age."

The ICT had sentenced Nizami to death after he was found guilty in eight of the 16 charges brought against him, and had noted in its verdict that the crimes he had committed intended to "demean the human civilisation."
Nizami filed the appeal with the SC in November 2014.
Following today's arguments in the Supreme Court, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said it was for the first time that a war crimes convict has confessed his guilt.

"From their submission, it appears to me that it is for the first time that the lawyers for any convicted Jamaat leader have confessed to the crimes committed during the 1971 Liberation War and appealed for only commuting the death sentence," Alam said.

The ICT has earlier sentenced "imprisonment until death" to two war crimes convicts -- former Jamaat chief Ghulam Azam and ex-BNP minister Abdul Alim -- on grounds of their old age as both exceeded 80.
Hossain, however, later told reporters that he did not admit that his client was guilty but "urged the court to reduce the penalty if he is found guilty, considering his age and health."
The four-member bench of the Supreme Court's Appellate Division, headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, fixed December 7 for next hearing when the attorney general would argue for the State.
The defence submission came 10 days after Bangladesh executed two high-profile war crimes convicts: Jamaat's secretary-general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed and Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury.

Bangladesh has so far executed four war crimes convicts since the trial of key perpetrators of 1971 atrocities began in line with the electoral commitment of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2008.
Nizami likely is the last high-profile accused in war crimes trial.
According to official figures, three million people were killed during the nine-month-long independence war against Pakistan.