DHAKA: Ten Bangladesh convicts on death row won the right to a final appeal against their conviction and sentence for war crimes, the country’s top legal official said yesterday.
The Supreme Court ruled that the seven Islamists and three other convicts were eligible to seek review of their sentences, delivered by a controversial tribunal probing Bangladesh’s 1971 independence war against Pakistan. Prosecutors had argued that convicts did not qualify for the additional appeal because they were convicted under the country’s special war crimes laws. “They will be allowed to seek review,” Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said of the court’s ruling handed down earlier yesterday.
Ex-minister sent to jail after Haj criticism
DHAKA: An influential Bangladesh ex-minister surrendered to police and was jailed yesterday after Islamists staged nationwide protests calling for his arrest and prosecution over remarks criticising the annual Muslim Haj pilgrimage.
Abdul Latif Siddique’s surrender came a day after Islamists gave an ultimatum to detain him after he returned home Sunday following a long stay in India and the United States where he called the Haj a “waste” of manpower. The accused “surrendered to police” early yesterday afternoon, Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Masudur Rahman said.
Dhaka’s Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s court then “sent him to jail as he did not seek bail”, public prosecutor Abdullah Abu said.
HK scribes removed from blacklist
MANILA: The Philippines has lifted an entry ban against nine Hong Kong journalists who shouted questions at President Benigno Aquino last year, a government spokeswoman said yesterday after a media backlash. The journalists had also been expelled from an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Indonesia last year after they aggressively questioned Aquino over a 2010 Manila hostage crisis that left eight Hong Kong residents dead.
Bureau of Immigration spokeswoman Elaine Tan said the ban was lifted because Aquino was not put through another bout of aggressive questioning at the Apec summit in Beijing earlier this month.
“After a re-evaluation, the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency said they (Hong Kong journalists) are no longer considered as threats and the ban was lifted effective today,” she added.
Quake hits China’s Sichuan province
BEIJING: A 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck China’s southwestern province of Sichuan yesterday, the US Geological Survey said.
The quake hit 25km northwest of the city of Kangding in the mountainous west of the province at 11:19pm (1519 GMT) at a depth of 11 km, the USGS reported.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage. The China Earth Networks Centre measured the quake at 5.8 and at a depth of 16km. A 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck the same area on Saturday, killing five and injuring dozens.
In May 2008, a 7.9 magnitude quake rocked Sichuan, killing more than 80,000 people and flattening swathes of the province.
AFP
