March 10, 2003	Monday	Muharram 6, 1424

DHAKA, March 9: More than 300 condemned prisoners, convicted in 331 criminal cases, are still languishing in different jails, as their death references have not yet been heard owing to unavailability of the “paper books” on the cases.

The session courts award death sentences, but law does not permit any such sentence to be executed without confirmation by the High Court Division of the Supreme Court.

According to the jail code, life sentence convicts are treated as condemned prisoners and detained in the condemned cells and isolated from other inmates. There are only 52 condemned cells in jails across the country, so six to seven condemned prisoners are now housed in every 36 square-feet cell meant to house one prisoner.