Noose tightens on Nizami for war crimes as Bangladesh Jamaat chief loses last legal battle

Bangladesh’s highest court of appeals has thrown out top war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami’s last-ditch appeal to review his death penalty for atrocities during the 1971 War of Independence.

The Supreme Court’s decision clears the final legal hurdle for the government to hang the Jamaat-e-Islami chief for directing rapes, mass murders, and massacre of intellectuals to stop Bangladesh emerge out of Pakistan as an independent nation.

But the former Al-Badr militia chief can beg President Md Abdul Hamid to save his neck, but he will have to repent of his crimes.

In the event he decides that he will not seek mercy, or if the president turns down a clemency petition from him, the government will execute the death sentence.

The four-strong Appellate Division bench headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha pronounced single-word judgment on Thursday.

The top judge took his seat in a tense court room and only uttered, “Dismissed”.

The other members of the bench were justices Nazmun Ara Sultana, Syed AB Mahmud Husain and Hasan Foez Siddique.

On Mar 16, the death warrant issued by the International Crimes Tribunal was read out to Nizami after the Supreme Court published the full copy of his verdict the day before.

He moved the chief justice-led court on Mar 29 to review his death penalty, well before the 15-day time limit for the last legal recourse. The court heard arguments for some two and a half hours on Tuesday.

Assisted by SM Shahjahan, Khandker Mahbub Hossain argued for Nizami at the court hearings on his review appeal filed.

Attorney General Mahbubey Alam represented the State and he was aided by Additional Attorney General Md Momtaz Uddin Fakir and Assistant Attorney General Bashir Ahmed.

An official of the Supreme Court Registrar’s Office said a certified copy of the full verdict on the review petition will soon be sent via the tribunal to Dhaka Central jail.

Nizami's trial

International Crimes Tribunal	Supreme Court
*Found guilty on eight charges out of the 16 levelled by the prosecution. *Death penalty awarded on charges 2, 4, 6 and 16. *Gets life imprisonment on charges 1, 3, 7 and 8.	*Upheld death on charges 2, 6 and 16 for rape, murder and killings of intellectuals. *Life in prison upheld on charges 7 and 8. *Acquitted in charges 1, 3 and 4.

Nizami, a close confidante of Jamaat ideologue and another war criminal Ghulam Azam, who had died in prison, is now lodged in Kashimpur prison in Gazipur.

His counsels said that Nizami and his family will decide whether to go for presidential clemency.

“All the legal battles are over,” said lawyer SM Shajahan, who assisted chief defence counsel Hossain at the court hearings on the review plea.

Meanwhile, the attorney general said that the whole nation was relieved over the verdict.

“It finally secured justice for the killings of intellectuals. Nizami inspired the Al-Badr and was responsible for the massacre of the intellectuals.”

The highest appeals court’s decision was greeted with celebrations and handshakes outside the courtroom and enlivened by full-throated slogans in the streets.

It elicited jubilation and relief among war veterans and supporters of war crimes trial who had pushed for maximum penalty, including the Ganajagaran Mancha.

Mancha activists and supporters brought at a procession at Dhaka’s Shahbagh intersection as soon as the verdict was pronounced.

“The scrapping of review plea concludes all the legal proceedings. This is a major victory for the people of Bangladesh.

”The nation has waited long for the notorious war criminal’s punishment,” said Mancha Spokesperson Imran H Sarker.

The Jamaat supremo is the fifth war criminal to carry a verdict for maximum punishment that is at the final stages of execution. He is the second politician after his deputy Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid to have served as minister and going to be hanged for war-time atrocities.

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This is Nizami

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On Jan 6 this year, this appellate court rejected a plea to overturn his conviction and the death sentence given by a special war tribunal’s verdict.

In its verdict on Nizami’s appeal, the apex court had said nothing short of a death sentence can be the apt punishment given the gravity of the horrific crimes he had committed.

The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), in Oct 29, 2014 verdict, found the former influential minister in BNP chief Khaleda Zia’s government guilty of eight out of the 16 charges.

The 72-year old divisive figure from Pabna was the chief of Islami Chhatra Sangha, then the student wing of Jamaat. He commanded the Al-Badr militia created by the Pakistan Army that was notorious for its ruthlessness.

He was also instrumental in the formation and running of the Razakar and Peace Committee, forces to help the Pakistan generals.

The Al-Badr brigade had gone on a genocidal rampage to cleanse the Bengali nation-in-the-making. Its loyalists killed some of the best brains who formed the spine of secular nationalism that undermined Pakistan's race-based founding principles.

Most of them were killed just a few days before the final victory on Dec 16.

The Jamaat linchpin already carries death penalty handed down in 2014 for his role in arms trafficking related to Chittagong 10-truck arms haul case.

The five appeals verdicts of war crimes cases handed down so far are of Jamaat assistant secretaries general Quader Molla and Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, secretary general Mujahid, the party's Nayeb-e-Amir Delwar Hossain Sayedee, and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury.

Sayedee's death sentence was commuted to prison term until death.

The four others' death sentences were upheld and they have been executed.

Ghulam Azam, who led the party during the war, and former BNP minister Abdul Alim died while waiting for the hearing of their appeals.

From killing grounds to the Cabinet

Born on Mar 31, 1943, in Monmothpur village of Pabna’s Santhia Upazila, Nizami succeeded his guru at the helm in 2000.

He was chosen for the top job after he led the party’s Dhaka City unit for four years until 1982.

A year later, he was made assistant secretary general before being promoted to secretary general in 1988.

He got his Kamil degree in Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) from Dhaka’s Madrasa-e-Alia in 1963.

Nizami later graduated from the Dhaka University in 1967.

Inspired by the political preaching of Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi, who founded Jamaat-e-Islami Hind in Lahore in 1941, Nizami joined its student wing Chhatra Sangha.

He swiftly rose through the ranks of the political outfit, operating in the then West and East Pakistan, and became Chhatra Sangha president in 1966.

Nizami retained the post for the following five years and throughout Bangladesh’s struggle for independence from Pakistan.

After the war, Nizami fled with Ghulam Azam to the UK.

In 1978, Bangladesh’s first military dictator Gen Ziaur Rahman repatriated them and brought Jamaat back into politics.

Nizami was elected to Parliament in 1991 and again in 2001 on a BNP-led coalition ticket.

He served as the agriculture minister until 2003 and thereafter as industries minister until 2006.