ICT verdict in Azam case likely ‘any day’

Jamaat-e-Islami guru Ghulam Azam’s war crimes trial came to a close on Wednesday with the verdict expected any day.

Chairman of the three-judge International Crimes Tribunal-1, Justice ATM Fazle Kabir said the verdict would remain pending and the court needed to consider the matter further.

Perhaps the most politically sensitive and legally significant trial, former Jamaat chief Ghulam Azam’s case comes to an end about 11 months after he was indicted for five war crimes charges including complicity, planning and conspiracy.

Two tribunals, set up to deal with crimes against humanity during 1971 Liberation War, have so far sentenced three persons — two were given death and one life.

The special courts have so far announced a verdict was forthcoming the day before. The verdicts have so far come within a month of the trials coming to a close.

A bulk of the legal debate hinges on Ghulam Azam’s superior role and command responsibility as head of Jamaat’s East Pakistan unit during the war.

While Azam’s defence has termed the trial merely a plot to politically harass the man and the most elaborate farce in history, the prosecution claims that the man’s guilt has been irrefutably established.

The bulk of Azam’s allegations consist of incitement and complicity with 28 and 23 counts. Azam is also accused of six counts of conspiracy and three counts of planning and one count of murder.

Azam has been held responsible for the murder of one Siru Miah, his son and 36 others in Brahmanbaria Jail for not doing anything to save them, presumably through the influence he had over the Pakistani government of the time.

On Wednesday, prosecutors took turns to reply to the defence arguments with Tureen Afroz presenting most of the points and references to precedents. Imran Siddiq was given a chance for a brief rebuttal after the prosecution had closed.

Justice Kabir said he was putting it down as CAV — a latin term ‘curia advisari vult’ meaning that the court requires further time to consider the matter — instead of announcing a date for the judgement, similar to the previous occasions.

Azam was produced before the tribunal on Jan 11 last year and sent to jail the same day.

Since then, the 90-year old leader has been kept at the prison cell of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University for better treatment considering his delicate health.

Ghulam Azam’s indictment hearing began on Feb 15 and the court charged him on May 13.

He is allegedly among the key people who colluded with the Pakistani military during the Liberation War.

The Jamaat mastermind is widely perceived to have been among the core group of right-wing supporters of the Pakistani Army, who came out strongly in support of a united Pakistan.

Azam, then chief of Jamaat’s East Pakistan unit, was said to be instrumental in setting up the infamous Peace Committee.

The Razakars, an auxiliary force set up to thwart the liberation forces, are said to have been mobilised through the Peace Committees across Bangladesh.

Among the most notorious vigilante militia was the Al Badr, whose membership is said to have been mainly dominated by the Jamaat's student wing called the Islami Chhatra Sangha at that time.

The Al Badr is alleged to have spearheaded execution of the intellectual elites of Bangladesh a few days before the victory on Dec 16, 1971.

Azam also spoke in favour of Pakistan in the Middle Eastern countries during the war, according to the prosecution.

Azam retired from active politics in 1999 but his party remains a key ally of the main opposition BNP. Two Jamaat leaders, also behind bars for war crimes charges, have even served as ministers during the BNP's last tenure.

The first war crimes tribunal sentenced another Jamaat leader, virtually the party’s number two, Delwar Hossain Sayedee to death for war crimes on Feb 28. Although Sayedee’s was the first case to enter the phase, the second tribunal delivered two verdicts before that.

Jamaat Assistant Secretary General Abdul Quader Molla was given life in prison on Feb 5 and former Jamaat member Abul Kalam Azad was given the death sentence on Jan 21.

Another Jamaat Assistant Secretary General, Mohammad Kamaruzzaman’s war crimes case is also awaiting verdict.