‘Ensure rights for victims in ICT law’

The Law Commission on Sunday recommended that the International Crimes Tribunal Act, 1973, be amended incorporating the provision for victims to challenge an ‘inadequate sentence’.

The recommendation ensuring rights of the victims equal to that of the convicts will be placed at a Cabinet meeting on Monday.

A report prepared on Sunday by the Law Commission Chairman, Prof M Shah Alam came up with the recommendation.

The government has already made it public that they will discuss the matter at the next Cabinet meeting.

The decision came in the wake of countrywide protests demanding capital punishment for convicted war criminals, which was spearheaded by demonstration at Shahbagh intersection, for the sixth day in a row.

Ensuring equal rights for the victims in the ICT Act is one of the major demands the protesters are trying to push through.

“The law needs to be amended further. In the main law (ICT Act, 1973), the government did not have the right to appeal. We have come up with the amendment proposal in the wake of demand by the people and after considering the country’s overall situation.”

The law was amended in 2009 after the Awami League won the parliamentary elections by two-thirds majority, apparently to fulfil its electoral pledge of trying suspected war criminals.

According to section 21 (2) of the ICT Act (amendment), the government may appeal only against the tribunal’s acquittal order.

The appeal can be filed at the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court.

In its latest amendment proposal, the commission proposed to add ‘an inadequate sentence’ after ‘acquittal’ in the law.

If the proposal is passed into law, the section should read: “The government has the right to appeal at the appellate division of the Supreme Court against an order of acquittal or inadequate sentence.”

‘Or an inadequate sentence’ has also been proposed to be mentioned in section 21 (3) of the Act.

The 2009 amendment set off the much-awaited war crimes trial in Mar, 2010.

The tribunal handed death sentence to Abul Kalam Azad alias Bachchu Razakar in its first verdict for crimes against humanity during the country’s Independence War in 1971.

A former Jamaat-e-Islami leader, Bachchu was tried in absentia as he managed to go into hiding soon after his arrest was ordered by the tribunal.

The second verdict came against Abdul Quader Molla, a top Jamaat leader known as ‘Butche of Mirpur’ for his wartime brutality.

The verdicts were marked by countrywide violence by Jamaat-e-Islami and its student front Islami Chhatra Shibir, who attacked policemen and threatened to incite a ‘civil war’ if there leaders were not spared the trial.

Given the situation, the second verdict outraged the nation, especially youths, who took to the Shahbagh intersection on Feb 5, the day the second verdict was announced.

The rage spread fast across the country, including in divisional cities like Chittagong.

The protesters have announced that they will not return home until justice is ensured to the victims to 1971 Independence War.

The protest is gathering momentum with the people, enraged by the second verdict which according to the protesters spared a "notorious war criminal of capital punishment", joining hands or expressing solidarity with the movement.

The Feb 8 grand rally at Shahbagh drew a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people.

Immediately after the second verdict, the government had assured protesters of appealing against it.

But jurists and legal experts observed that the existing law hardly allowed the government to challenge a tribunal order.

Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee’s Legal Affairs Secretary Turin Afroze said the existing law would have been used in appeal for a lesser punishment, but not for enhancing it.

The three-member ICT-2 found five of the six war crime charges against Quader Molla vindicated, including his direct involvement in two crimes.

He stood complicit in the remaining three types of crimes.

He was acquitted on one charge which Additional Attorney General MK Rahman had said would be the "basis of their appeal".

“The law says an appeal can be filed against acquittal. It can be the acquittal in a single charge, or all the charges brought against him.”

Quader Molla also reserved the right to appeal against his life term, and his counsels said it would be done.

On Sunday, after a meeting, Law Minister Shafique Ahmed said the proposal of giving the victim and the convict equal rights to appeal would be discussed in the coming Cabinet meeting.

Once approved by the Cabinet, the amendment proposal is expected to be tabled in the current session of Parliament for its passage into a law.

The law ministry’s Information Officer Md Mizanur Rahman said a verdict must be challenged in a month, and that the appeal has to be disposed of in 45 days.

The Supreme Court may extend the deadline for disposing of the appeal by 15 more days. It means an appeal must be settled at the Supreme Court in two months.