International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973
Sections 3(2)(a)(g) & (h), 4(1), 20(2)
ICCPR
Article 6
Malice in law— Settled principle of law that any action or order tainted by malice in law is void ab initio and a nullity in the eye of the law— The judgment passed by the ICT in the instant case has been vitiated by malice in law, the same constitutes a nullity in the eye of the law. Accordingly, the judgment of conviction and sentence passed against the appellant is void ab initio and non est and devoid of any legal validity. As such, the impugned judgment of conviction and sentence passed against the appellant is liable to be set aside being a nullity in the eye of the law, and the appellant is accordingly liable to be acquitted. The impugned judgment and order dated 24.11.2014 passed by International Crimes Tribunal-1, Dhaka in ICT-BD Case No.1 of 2013 is, hereby, set aside. .....Md. Mobarak Hossain =VS= The Chief Prosecutor, ICT, (Criminal), 2025(2) [19 LM (AD) 520] ....View Full Judgment

UN and International Law on Death Sentence–
Public International law does not prohibit death penalty. Article 6(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provides that death penalty may be imposed only for the “most serious crimes”. Countries that retain death penalty are required to observe a number of restrictions and limitations on its use.
The UN safeguards (ECOSOC- safeguards) for cypilet connections require clear and convincing evidence leaving no room for an alterative explanation of the facts and their must be a right to appeal to a higher Court. The rules require that such capital case is carefully scrutinised by domestic Courts for defoliating possibility of error.
The UN Human Rights Committee has interpreted ‘most serious crimes’ not to include economic offences, embezzlement by officials, robbery, abduction not resulting in death, apostasy and drug related crimes. It has also excluded political offences, expressing particular concern about ‘very vague categories of offences relating to internal and external security, vaguely worded offences of opposition to order and national security violations and ‘political offences.
The UN Commission on Human Rights, a subsidiary body of the UN Economic and social Council (ECOSOC) , replaced by the Human Rights Council in 2006, interpreted ‘most serious crimes’ as not including non-violent acts such as financial crimes, religious practice or expression of conscience and sexual relations between consenting adults.
Safeguard 1 of the 1984 UN Safeguards Guaranteeing Protection of the Rights of those Facing the Death Penalty also provides that in countries which have not abolished the death penalty, capital punishment may be imposed only for the most serious crimes, it being understood that their scope should not go beyond intentional crimes with lethal or other extremely grave consequences.
The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial summary or arbitrary executions stated in his 2012 report to the UN General Assembly that the death penalty should only be applied for offences of intentional killing, based on the practice of retentionist states and the jurisprudence of UN and other bodies.
Although Rome Statute does not allow ICC to pass death sentence, it does nevertheless, recognise death sentence by allowing member states to pass death sentence upon those accused of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity if such sentence is permissible in the given states.
Its statute does, therefore, allow member states to pass death sentence on those found guilty of crimes against humanity when the national Courts in those states assume jurisdiction.
The argument that the death penalty has a strong deterrent effect on crimes, especially serious violent crimes, plays an important role in the debate in retentionist states. Often, it is the primary reason why the public and politicians shy away from abolition.
The argument assumes that would-be criminals consider the full range of consequences of committing a criminal act, anticipate getting caught, and decide not to undertake the criminal act because they have a strong belief that if caught, they will be sentenced to death.
Governments in retentionist states often invoke the argument that public opinion favours death penalty, and therefore they cannot abolish it.
Although Article 6 of the Civil Covenant is worded in a way which has led the Human Rights Committee to believe that it strongly suggests the desirability of abolition, the second optional protocol to the Civil Covenant – the treaty by which states can solemnly pledge themselves to abolish capital punishment, has not attracted many signatories. (The Second optional Protocol to the ICC PR) The UN Human Rights Committee held that while execution in a gas chamber is cruel, killing by a lethal injection is not. (Paras:983-994); .....Allama Delwar Hossain Sayedee =VS= Government of Bangladesh, (Criminal), 2017 (1)- [2 LM (AD) 76] ....View Full Judgment

On Death Sentence– Article 6(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which has by now, assumed the status of Customary International Law, affirms that in states that retain capital punishment, the death penalty may only be imposed for the ‘most serious crimes’. Human rights monitoring mechanisms support the view that this concept is confined to murder. (Page-41, Uimaginable Atrocities, Justice, Politics, and Rights at the War Crimes Tribunal, ProfessorWilliam Schabas OC , MRIA. Oxford University Press) (A. H. M. Shamsuddin Choudhury, J) …Government of Bangladesh =VS= Abdul Quader Molla, (Criminal), 2020 (1) [8 LM (AD) 375] ....View Full Judgment

Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947
Section 5(2) r/w
Penal Code, 1860
Sections 409, 405 and 109 and
Emergency Power Rules, 2007
Rule 5 r/w
Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1958
Sections 5, 10(1A)
Trust Act, 1882
Section 23, 94
ICCPR
Article 14(6)
Begum Khaleda Zia under section 409 of the Penal Code as well as section 5(2) of the PCA, 1947. Her sentence was enhanced to rigorous imprisonment for a period of ten years— Appellate Division’s summary of core findings are, accordingly, enumerated hereinbelow:
I. The convictions under section 409 of the Penal Code, 1860 for alleged criminal breach of trust in the absence of the constitutive ingredients of such offence as defined under section 405 with illustrations are misconceived and have resulted in a travesty of justice.
II. To be an offence of Criminal Breach of Trust, there must be an entrustment/dominion over the property belonging to another and the same has to be dishonestly misappropriated as per section 405 of the Penal Code, 1860 but in the instant case, there was no element of entrustment upon the Appellant Begum Khaleda Zia.
III. The general principle of criminal jurisprudence is that the State has to prove allegation(s) against an accused beyond all reasonable doubts but both the courts below have violated the said principle and convicted the Appellants on an trumped-up charges without seeking the aid of the applicable law.
IV. Both the High Court Division and the Trial Court below passed their respective judgments on the basis of hypothetical presumptions and accusations not based on legal evidences.
V. The ACC has stepped beyond its jurisdiction to have initiated the instant criminal proceeding as the issue revolves around a private trust and there is no accusation/ complaint from the relevant party concerned.
VI. The very initiation of proceedings is barred by law and as such not only the judgments below but also the entire proceedings should, therefore, be set aside giving benefit to all individuals who have been maliciously prosecuted.
Appellate Division passes the following order:
All the appeals are, hereby, allowed by this Division’s unanimous decision. Accordingly, the impugned judgment and order dated 30.10.2018 passed by the High Court Division in Criminal Appeal No. 1676 of 2018 with Criminal Appeal Nos. 2215, 2292 of 2018 and Criminal Revision No. 741 of 2018, and the judgment and order dated 8.2.2018 passed by the Special Judge, Special Judge Court No. 5, Dhaka in Special Case No. 17 of 2017 are, hereby, set aside. Consequently, all the Appellants having not been found guilty of the charges leveled against them, stand fully acquitted. The proceedings constituting the subject matter of these appeals are found to be a manifest contrived misapplication of the law as tantamount to malicious prosecution. This judgment shall also extend to other convicted persons who, however, did not prefer any appeal. This decision shall, resultantly restore the Appellant’s and all other convict’s dignity, reaffirm their innocence, and thereby, put an end to the unwarranted proceedings initiated against them. .....Begum Khaleda Zia =VS= Durnity Daman Commission, (Criminal), 2025(2) [19 LM (AD) 14] ....View Full Judgment