A sad chapter in the history of Bangladesh judiciary

Barrister Razzaq said, the Appellate Division had awarded death sentence against an accused for the first time while the trial court had awarded him life term imprisonment, and it is unprecedented in the history of Bangladesh.

Shabagi joy seekers delayed their party till evening apparently having runed out of man power and steam. They may be partying for their dream being fulfilled, but tomorrow may have brought misery for them, as there is always sorrow after happiness. Since onset of this trial, war crime tribunal has been marred by controversy, lies, and rejection, and to this day, every judgment has been questionable. Instead of healing wounds of the nation, it has increased bitterness, political and social instability, and has claimed hundreds of lives at the hands of so called justice seekers.  I called them so called justice seekers, because their understanding of justice falls far short of international standard, although, ironically, they named it ‘International War Crimes Tribunal’.

Kader Mollah’s life and death may depend on the out come of judicial review, if they allow one, but the legacy of this will have far reaching consequences for Awamileague. No one is against war crimes tribunal, not even Jamati Islam reject its principle, but the processes and intention behind the tribunal set  up, was to destroy one particular political party and kill all its leaders regardless whether they had committed any crimes or not. Bangladesh Jamati Islam at the time of liberation war, was a small Islamic party along with Muslim league, Nijami Islam and others, who had opposed the separation of Pakistan. It was a political decision made by its leaders to safeguard Muslim unity, which had no relationship to committing murder, rape, arson as they are accused by the prosecution. It was the Pakistani military and local militia that they had set up that committed brutal crimes against innocent civilians. Also some individuals, out of personal revenge, and the greed for power and wealth assisted and cooperated with the occupation army to kill, and rape innocent Bangladeshis. None of the men held for war crimes were ever accused, or had any case filled against them at any police station in Bangladesh after the liberation war until this current Awamileague government came to power in 2008.

The argument is, international war crimes stipulates that none could be tried for mere political support, but be tried for direct crimes committed  by  a person or have ordered such act to take place. There was no evidence beyond doubt that they had participated in killings or that they had ordered such crimes to be committed against any civilians.

According to defence lawyers and international war crimes expert, all these men would have been acquitted, had there been trial under international standards, and under impartial judges. The skype scandal is enough to implicate partiality of the investigators, prosecution, government and presiding judges in their involvement to achieve pre-set verdict. What is at stake is fair justice, and if this government loses power, and all indications are that they will massively loose under a non-partisan interim election time government, the opposition may use the same set up and standards to try Awamileague leaders for other crimes they had committed in the past. In conclusion, they have written their own fate by design.