Khan Akram Hossain of Bagerhat, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 Liberation War, has been acquitted. The verdict was delivered on Thursday morning by a five-member appellate bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury.

Previously, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 had sentenced Sheikh Sirajul Haque alias Siraj Master to death and Khan Akram Hossain to life imprisonment on August 11, 2015. The tribunal found Siraj guilty on five of six charges and Akram guilty on one of three charges. Following the tribunal’s decision, Akram appealed to the higher court seeking acquittal.

According to official records, Akram was born in 1955 in Morrelganj, Bagerhat, and later worked in the agriculture department until his retirement in 2011. The acquittal marks a significant development in the ongoing judicial review of war crimes cases from Bangladesh’s 1971 conflict.