What will happen? Ghulam Azam wonders

Convicted war criminal former Jamaat-e-Islami chief Ghulam Azam had complained about ‘feeling bad’ right before his sentence was being pronounced on Monday.

The International Crimes Tribunal-1 found him guilty of all five categories of charges – conspiracy, planning, incitement, complicity (abetment) and murder.

Azam, now 91-year-old, was sentenced to 90 continuous years behind bars.

Judges at the tribunal said he deserved maximum penalty for his crimes but was given the jail term considering his age and physical condition.

The sentence means the Jamaat ideological guru will have to ‘die behind bars’.

A white ambulance carrying him entered court premises at around 10:05am. He was taken to the temporary jail at the tribunal where Jamaat Assistant Secretary General ATM Azhar was being kept.

Before being taken to the tribunal nearly 35 minutes later, the two were seen having a chat.

His son Abdullahil Aman Azmi was sitting in front of the dock on the south-western corner. He was joined by his father’s long-time personal secretary ‘Shahad’ and cousin ‘Saleh’ and relative ‘Hamza’.

Ghulam Azam, who led Jamaat’s East Pakistan wing during the 1971 Liberation War, was seated in a chair wearing a white scalp cap, white Punjabi, and lungi.

He stared at the judges with eyes wide open as they entered the courtroom but gradually lowered his gaze at around noon.

His son Azmi, a dismissed Brigadier General, was more relaxed and dozed off sitting in a chair.

As the judges started reading out the 243-page verdict, Azam complained, “I’m feeling really bad.”

His son got up and asked what was wrong. “I’m feeling very bad,” he was heard as saying.

Azmi wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it over to his father’s lawyers. The paper was finally passed to Saifur Rahman who stood on the stage in the courtroom at around 1:37pm.

Chairman of the three-judge tribunal Justice A T M Fazle Kabir was reading out the final part of the verdict then.

Failing to evoke any response from the judges, Saifur Rahman returned to his seat.

Ghulam Azam asked a policeman standing nearby what would happen. One of the policemen said the verdict would be pronounced.

At the moment, Azmi asked his father’s long-time assistant Shahad to sit in front of the dock. As Shahad sat there, Ghulam Azam, in a slightly irritated tone asked, “What will you achieve sitting here?”

As the verdict was being delivered, he kept his head down.

Azmi came to him smiling after hearing the 90-year prison term.

“Everything’s fine, you haven’t been sentenced to death.”