Dhaka: The Supreme Court deferred till 1 April the hearing of review petition filed by condemned convict Muhammad Kamaruzzaman of Jamaat-e-Islami against the verdict which upheld the death penalty against him.

A four-member appellate division bench headed by Justic SK Sinha fixed the date on Monday in response to a time petition filed by the defendant.

The other four members of the bench are Justice Mohammad Abdul Wahhab Mia, Justice Hassan Foyez Sidiqque, and Justice AHM Shamsuddin Chowdhury.  
The hearing on the review petition was scheduled to hold on Monday.

Kamaruzzaman—now on death row—filed the petition on 5 March seeking to review the Appellate Division judgment upholding the death sentence awarded by the trial court for his crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971.

On 9 May, 2013, the International Crimes Tribunal -2 condemned Jamaat-e-Islami assistant secretary general M Kamaruzzaman, a 1971 operator of infamous Al Badr vigilante outfit, to death for his crimes against humanity, including murder, abduction, torture, rape and mass killing during the Liberation War.

On 3 November last year, the Appellate Division upheld the tribunal’s death sentence by a short order and released its full text of the judgment on 18 February and according to the prescribed rules the review petition was filed. As a result, the execution of Kamaruzzman’s death sentence issued by the trial court remains inoperative.