Former MP Sakhawat Hossain has been give death penalty and life term imprisonment to seven others for their crimes against humanity during the Liberation War.
The three-member ICT-1 led by justice Md Anwarul Haque pronounced the verdict.
Of the accused, Mawlana Sakhawat and Md Billal Hossain Biswas are in custody while six others remain fugitive. Besides, Lutfor Morol died of cardiac arrest in police custody on May 6, 2016.
A three-member ICT bench headed by Justice Anwarul Haque fixed the date yesterday for announcing the verdict.
Earlier, on July 14, the tribunal kept the verdict on CAV (curia advisory vault, a Latin legal term meaning the court awaits verdict).
All the accused are facing five charges for crimes against humanity committed during the War of Liberation in 1971. Charges of murder, rape and torture were brought against 12 people on July 2015.
The war crimes tribunal indicted nine of the men on December 23 and acquitted the others. During the closing arguments against the accused, senior prosecutor Barrister Tureen Afroze sought maximum punishment for the accused, saying death is the only punishment they deserve. Defense counsel Syed Mizanur Rahman, however, pleaded for justice on his part.
A total of 17 prosecution witnesses, including investigation officer Abdur Razzak Khan, testified against the accused.
According to the prosecution, Ashraf was the president of then Islami Chhatra Sangha (ICS) in Jamalpur and founded Al-Badr in his locality in 1971.
The other accused too were involved with the ICS and its mother organisation Jamaat and subsequently joined Al-Badr, Razakar and Peace Committee, notorious auxiliary forces of the Pakistani occupation army. They carried out mayhem in Jamalpur sub-division in 1971. In the indictment order, the tribunal charged them for committing abduction, confinement, torture, murder, plundering, arson and other notorious activities.