Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami has challenged the death penalty awarded to him by a war crimes tribunal.
The defence lawyer on Sunday filed an appeal against the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-1) verdict against the Jamaat chief.
Advocate Md Shishir Manir, on behalf of Mujaheed, filed the appeal in the Supreme Court.
On Oct. 29, the ICT-1 handed down capital punishment to Jamaat chief for war crimes which include the killings of intellectuals.
The ICT-1 judge panel explained the 16 charges levelled against the accused 71-year-old Jamaat President Nizami, who is now behind the bar.
Nizami was indicted in 2012 with 16 charges of crimes against humanity including looting, mass killings, arson, rape and forcefully converting people into Muslims during the war.
The indictment order, in a brief profile of the accused, said Nizami was a key organizer of the Al-Badr, an auxiliary force of then Pakistani army which planned and executed the killing of Bangalee intellectuals at the fag end of the Liberation War in 1971.
After the verdict, Bangladeshi Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told reporters that eight "charges including murder against Nizami were proved beyond a reasonable doubt leading to a death sentence to the leader of Jamaat."
In his petition filed on Sunday with the Supreme Court, Nizami claimed himself innocent and sought acquittal on all the eight charges for which was given capital punishment.
After filing the appeal, Manir, a counsel for Nizami, said the Supreme Court will now fix a date for hearing the appeal.
Five top Jamaat leaders have already been punished for their 1971 crimes and Nizami is among three other top leaders now being tried in war crimes tribunals which Prime Minister Sheikh Hasian's Bangladesh Awami League-led government formed in 2010 to bring the perpetrators of 1971 to book.
Apart from Jamaat high-ups, a few leaders of ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) are also facing trials.
Both BNP and Jamaat have dismissed the court as a government " show trial" and said it is a domestic set-up without the oversight or involvement of the United Nations.
Muslim-majority Bangladesh was called East Pakistan until 1971. The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said about 3 million people were killed in the war although independent researchers think that between 300,000 and 500,000 died. Endi
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