BANGLADESH. MAN WRONGLY SENTENCED TO DEATH RELEASED AFTER TWO YEARS

a Bangladesh court overturned the sentence of Shah Alam Babu, a man who was wrongfully convicted of murder and condemned to death. Delivering its verdict, the High Court also ordered the trial judge in the case to be stripped of his judicial powers.
"The judges said in their verdict that the lower court judge did not apply his judicial mind and lacked fundamental knowledge of the criminal justice system," said defence lawyer Elina Khan.
"They also asked the police department to take action against the investigating officer for wrongfully charging Shah Alam Babu and setting up the case against him," she added.
Lawyers for the man told the court that officers began to harass him in 2003 claiming that he was in fact Sundar Babu, one of the accused in the 1998 shooting of a man in the capital Dhaka.
He later surrendered to police and was tried and condemned to death on August 18, 2004, despite repeated statements by witnesses, including the murdered man's widow, that the man in the dock was not the man named in the indictment.
"I told the judge that they were sentencing an innocent man to death while the real killer of my husband was roaming freely in the city," the widow, Rokeya, told AFP.
The High Court verdict also ordered the immediate arrest and trial of the original suspect.