Ghulam Azam verdict on Monday

The first war crimes tribunal of Bangladesh will deliver its verdict in the trial of former Jamaat-e-Islami chief Ghulam Azam on Monday.

Prosecutor Zead-Al-Malum said at a media briefing on Sunday.

The war crimes trial hearing involving Azam had ended on Apr 17 but the verdict was kept pending.

Chairman of the three-judge International Crimes Tribunal-1, Justice ATM Fazle Kabir, had said the verdict was being held back as the court needed to consider the matter further.

Perhaps in the most politically sensitive and legally significant trial, the hearing in the former Jamaat chief Azam’s case came to an end about 11 months after his indictment.

The former chief of the political outfit is accused of five war crimes including complicity, planning and conspiracy during Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971.

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

Charges against Azam consist of incitement and complicity on 28 and 23 counts. Azam is also accused on six counts of conspiracy and three counts of planning and one count of murder.

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.

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 in a prison cell at 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.

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

On Feb 28, the first war crimes tribunal sentenced Delwar Hossain Sayedee, virtually the party’s No. 2, to death for war crimes.

Although Sayedee’s was the first case to be taken up, 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.

Jamaat Assistant Secretary General, Mohammad Kamaruzzaman has been convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death on May 9.

On Apr 17, after the hearing ended in Azam’s case, Prosecutor Tureen Afroz told reporters, “Ghulam Azam worked as a ‘lighthouse’ for all offenders in 1971.”

But Ghulam Azam’s lawyer Tajul Islam had claimed, “The prosecution only made accusations; they could not prove them through argument. So the possibility of the maximum penalty for him is farfetched. I believe he will not be punished for one minute.”

Defense lawyers presented their argument for a total of 12 working days, whereas tribunal prosecutors presented their evidence within 11 working days.

A total of 17 people testified for the prosecution, whereas the defence produced one witness.

Ghulam Azam’s son, the dismissed Brigadier General Abdullahil Aman Azmi, was the only one to have testified on behalf of the accused.

Azam had publicly spoken in favour of Pakistan in the Middle East to create public opinion against Bangladesh’s Liberation War, the prosecution had said.

The Jamaat leader returned to Bangladesh in 1978, when the BNP founder, Ziaur Rahman, was the President, after being in London for seven years after 1971.

In 1999, he stepped down as the Jamaat-e- Islami chief but remained the outfit’s ‘ideological guru’.