‘Shikdar turned Sayedee’

Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee’s case was first to proceed to trial.

His indictment order on Oct 3, 2011 with 20 charges, also came months before other Jamaat leaders. He was arrested and brought before the tribunal for the first time almost a year before indictment on Nov 2, 2010.

The three-member International Crimes Tribunal -1, was set up to try crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War, on Mar 25, 2010.

Sayedee, with his trademark hennaed beard, is famous across Bangladesh and abroad for religious sermons and his case, the first at the tribunal, has been the subject of much attention outside the courts.

Inside, however, the orders passed in this case settled precedents for other cases at both the war crimes tribunals. The second tribunal was set up to expedite war crimes trials on Mar 23, 2012.

One of the largest Islamist parties in the sub-continent, Jamaat has its top leaders behind bars facing war crimes charges.

They include the party’s former chief, current chief, the secretary general and an assistant secretary general.

One assistant secretary general, Abdul Quader Molla, was sentenced to life for his war crimes on Feb 5 this year which sparked off mass protests demanding the death penalty.

Since his arrest, the tribunal disposed of a number of bail petitions. In addition, on the prayer of Sayedee’s counsel, the court directed relevant authorities to ensure better treatment of the accused in the hospital as desired and also directed the authorities concerned to provide him with “health friendly” transportation during his commute between the jail, tribunal and the hospital.

The prosecution proposed formal charges on Jul 11, 2011 alleging that Sayedee was a member and leader of the local Razakar unit, a vigilante militia, committed crimes against humanity. The tribunal took cognisance of the charges on Jul 14, 2011.

The prosecution’s case is that Sayedee was a minor road side vendor at Parerhat before the Liberation War when he was known by the surname of Shikdar. He however, became a member of the local Peace Committee, an infamous social platform mobilised centrally by right wing political parties that stood against the independence of Bangladesh.

Sayedee came to prominence, apparently, because of his fluency in Urdu and went on to lead the local Razakar units on a number of raids.

That Delwar Hossain Shikdar took on the surname of Sayedee only after the Liberation War. Soon after the war, Sayedee had gone into hiding in fear of reprisals from the freedom fighters and emerged publicly much later.

Sayedee’s 20 charges include genocide, murder, rape, arson, loot and persecution.

The defence, however, argues that this is a case of mistaken identity saying that the notorious Delwar Hossain Shikdar had been apprehended and executed by freedom fighters after the war.

Sayedee, the man being charged, used to reside in Jessore from earlier than 1971 and was even then engaged in giving sermons.

He, and his family, had fled Jessore looking for safety and stayed for about two weeks at the house of a ‘Peer’ for about two weeks from around Apr 1, 1971. Thereafter the Sayedee family took refuge in another village, Mohiron, under Bagharpara in Jessore at one Roushan Ali’s house.

The Sayedee’s, the defence argues, stayed there for two months and a half. They then went to their village home.

The Jamaat leader has lost his eldest son and his mother over the court of the trial. He himself suffered a heart attack as well, on his return from Rafique Sayedee’s funeral. The following surgery, administering three stents, forced him to keep away from the trial for almost a month around the middle of last year.

There have been 28 witnesses for the prosecution and 16 for the defence. Additionally the tribunal received 16 witness statements given to the investigator after the prosecution argued that those witnesses were either dead, or that producing them before the tribunal would incur unreasonably delay or expenditure.

The investigator, an additional superintendent of policy, Mohammad Helal Uddin was kept on the stand for almost 50 days between Apr 8 and Aug 13 last year. The investigator was deposed over eight days and took the stand to face cross-examination on over 40 days.

Together with his deposition and cross-examination the court recorded a little less than 153,000 words, enough to fill 38 pages of broadsheet newspaper.