Nizami verdict on Wednesday

Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami will have the verdict on his 1971 war crimes charges delivered on Wednesday.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 28 Oct 2014, 05:46 AM
Updated : 28 Oct 2014, 07:12 PM

The judgment day was scheduled by the International Crimes Tribunal-1 headed by Justice M Enayetur Rahim on Tuesday.

The verdict was postponed twice before – the latest being on Jun 24 when the accused was said to have fallen sick in prison.

But prison authorities in July submitted a report confirming that he was in good health.

Nizami is charged with heading the notorious Al-Badr militia as head of Jamaat’s student front, then called Islami Chhatra Sangha, during Bangladesh’s 1971 Liberation War. He became the chief of Jamaat in 2000.

He is charged with 16 counts of war crimes including murder, loot, rape, incitement, planning, abetment and killing of intellectuals as a prime collaborator to the Pakistani Army.

The date for what is the 10th war crimes verdict arrives just days after the death of Jamaat guru Ghulam Azam. Convicted of all five categories of crime, he was sentenced to 90 years in prison, but died at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital on Oct 23.

Nizami’s case hearing ended in November last year when ICT-1 was headed by Justice ATM Fazle Kabir. The judgment was delayed after Fazle Kabir’s retirement on Dec 31.

The current ICT-1 Chairman Justice Rahim was appointed on Feb 23 and a few days later fresh arguments were ordered in the case in response to a defence petition filed for the ‘sake of justice'.

On Mar 24, the tribunal kept the verdict pending again and announced Jun 24 as a new date for the judgment. But on that date Nizami ‘fell sick’ at Dhaka Central Jail.

The Jamaat boss was arrested on July 29, 2010 for allegedly hurting religious sentiments and on Aug 2 that year, he was shown arrested in the case for committing crimes against humanity.

The prosecution has presented 26 witnesses after the trial began on May 28, 2012. The defence, on the other hand, produced four.

The much-awaited judgment of crimes against humanity committed during the war in 1971 began with the formation of Bangladesh’s first war crimes tribunal on Mar 25, 2010 after the Awami League, headed by Sheikh Hasina, came to power in 2009.

Almost the entire top leadership of the Jamaat-e-Islami stands accused of such crimes.

Nizami has already been sentenced to death by a special tribunal in the 2004 Chittagong arms cases.

It found him guilty of complicity in trying to smuggle in a huge quantity of weapons through the port city while he was industries minister in the Khaleda Zia government.

Nizami was born on Mar 31, 1943 in Monmothpur of Pabna’s Santhia Upazila. He got his Kamil degree in Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) from Dhaka’s Madrasa-e-Alia in 1963.

He later graduated with a degree from the University of Dhaka in 1967.