Staff Correspondent:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday acquitted Mobarak Hossain in a case filed over crimes against humanity committed in 1971, overturning the death sentence handed down by the International Crimes Tribunal-1 in 2014.

The Appellate Division of the SC also scrapped the ICT-1 verdict.

A five-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed today delivered the judgement following an appeal filed by Mobarak challenging the ICT-1 verdict.

Details of the apex court verdict will be known after its full text is released.

Advocate SM Shahjahan and Barrister Imran A Siddiq placed arguments on behalf of Mobarak, while prosecutor Gazi MH Tamim represented the state during hearing of the appeal earlier.

On November 24, 2014, the ICT-1 sentenced Mobarak, a Jamaat-e-Islami leader from Brahmanbaria who later joined the Awami League after 1971, to death for abducting and killing 33 people of Tanmandayl village in his district during the Liberation War.

The tribunal also sentenced Mobarak to life imprisonment for another war crime and acquitted him of three other charges.

On December 18, 2014, Mobarak filed an appeal through his lawyers with the apex court, challenging the ICT-1 verdict.

In an 82-page appeal, Mobarak sought acquittal of the two charges, in which he was found guilty and convicted. He also annexed documents of 780 pages along with the appeal.

He also cited 77 grounds on which, according to him, the court should consider his acquittal.