Dismissed army officer Captain Abdul Majed, who is a self-confessed killer of Father of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, filed a mercy petition on Wednesday against his death penalty after a Dhaka court issued death warrant against him earlier in the day. Talking to this correspondent, Mahbubul Islam, jailor of Dhaka Central Jail confirmed the news.
He said the jail authority will send the mercy petition to the president on Thursday through the home ministry. Judge Md Helal Chowdhury of Dhaka District and Sessions Judge's Court issued the death warrant. Earlier in the day, the prosecution submitted two separate petitions -- one for showing him arrested and the other for issuing the death warrant.
Dhaka District Public Prosecutor Khandakar Abdul Mannan submitted the petitions after receiving the order sheet from the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court on Majed's arrest. At first, the court showed Majed arrested in the case as he had been absconding since the case was filed in 1996.
Later, the judge issued the death warrant and also read it out toMajed, who was present in the court. However, during the hearing, Majed told the court that he was not involved with the murder, said court sources. After passing the orders, the court sent Majed to Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj with the death warrant.
Mosharraf Hossain Kajol, one of the prosecutors said, jail authorities will again read out the death warrant to him once it reaches the jail.
According to him, the death sentence will be executed between 21 and 28 days of issuing the death warrant. Although all the courts across the country have been declared closed till April 14 due to the outbreak of coronavirus, District and Sessions Judge Md Helal Chowdhury, as per the instruction of the Supreme Court, opened his court today only to hear the petition.
Earlier on Tuesday, Abdul Majed was sent to Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj. He was produced before the court of Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate AM Zulfikar Hayat. A team from Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of police arrested Majed from city’s Mirpur Cantonment area on early Monday.
On November 19 in 2009, the Supreme Court upheld the death sentences of Abdul Majed and 11 other self-confessed killers of Bangabandhu. On January 27 in 2010, five of them were executed in Dhaka Central Jail. Six other convicts, including Abdul Majed, remained at large. In June 2001, another condemned killer died in Zimbabwe.
In 2010, a task force comprising ministers and high officials of the foreign, law and home ministries was formed to locate and bring back the fugitives. The government had also made global appeals in bilateral, regional and international forums to track down the culprits. Twelve ex-military officers were sentenced to death for the August 15, 1975 killing of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with most of his family members and five of them were executed while one died a natural death as he was on the run abroad.
The five were hanged at Dhaka Central Jail on January 28, 2010, after a protracted legal procedure while the delayed trial process began in 1996 when an infamous indemnity law was scrapped as it was protecting the assassins from justice until then. They were sacked lieutenant colonels Syed Farooq Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed and Mohiuddin Ahmed and sacked majorBazlul Huda while another convict, sacked colonel Rashed Pasha, died a natural death in Zimbabwe while he was on the run.
Farooq Rahman, Shahriar Rashid Khan, Mohiuddin Ahmed of artillery faced the trial in the judge court while Huda was extradited from Thailand and another Mohiuddin known as lancer Mohiuddinwas sent back from the United States after the then district judge Golam Rasul delivered the judgment.
Majed was one of the remaining fugitives believed to be hiding abroad with no confirmed whereabouts. After the August 15, 1975 carnage, Majed was rehabilitated in civil service during the subsequent regime of Ziaur Rahman as an ex-cadre official and posted as the director of National Savings Department and later he was transferred to the finance ministry.
He fled the country along with most other 1975 coup plotters as the 1996 general elections brought Awami League back to power under Sheikh Hasina’s leadership which vowed to expose to justice Bangabandhu killers in line with its election manifesto.
