Bangladesh indicts Islamic leaders for ’71 war crimes

Associated Press Posted online: Tue May 29 2012, 01:42 hrs

 

Dhaka : The chief of Bangladesh’s largest Islamic party and one of his deputies were indicted Monday for alleged crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 independence war against Pakistan.

 

 

The two Jamaat leaders’ indictment came two years after their arrest and with this war crime charges were framed by the special tribunals against five high-profile suspects.The others who were indicted earlier are former Jamaat chief Ghulam Azam and party leaders Delwar Hossain Sayeedi and main opposition BNP’s lawmaker Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury.Both the leaders were charged for masterminding or stewarding genocide, mass murders, rapes, arson and inciting others to stage war crimes.

While indicting Nizami, the tribunal asked him if he was guilty or not as the prosecution charged him for carrying out the crimes in capacity as the chief of the notorious Al-Badr auxiliary forces and the student wing of the then Islami Chhatra Sangha as an accomplice of Jamaat chief of East Pakistan wing Ghulam Azam at that time.

“Not guilty,” Nizami said in reply after a long statement when he said the then Pakistan Peoples Party leader Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was entirely responsible for the genocide in 1971.

 The prosecution brought 15 charges against Nizami including crimes against humanity and genocide covering murder, rape, arson and looting.

The tribunal-1 took into contingence charges against Nizami on January 9, 2012 and the Tribunal-2 took into cognisance the charges against Mollah on December 28 last year and subsequently pre-indictment hearings were staged when lawyers of both sides argued before the courts.

Earlier on May 13, Tribunal had indicted “top collaborator” of Pakistani junta Ghulam Azam on 61 charges for “crimes against humanity” during 1971 Liberation War. Azam was the former chief of Jamaat-e-Islami.

 

Officially, three million people were killed in the war by the Pakistani army and their Bengali-speaking collaborators. Bangladesh attained independence after a nine-month war against Pakistan in 1971.