Bangladesh to hang Jamaat-e-Islami chief Nizami for 1971 war crimes

Motiur Rahman Nizami, the Jamaat-e-Islami chief who led Pakistan Army’s vigilante Al-Badr militia to abort Bangladesh’s birth, will pay for the 1971 wartime atrocities with nothing less than his life, a special tribunal has ruled.

The International Crimes Tribunal-1, chaired by Justice M Enayetur Rahim sentenced him to hang till death on Wednesday in a packed courtroom in Dhaka, nearly a year after the case was wrapped up.

The three-strong special court said in the unanimous verdict that eight of the 16 charges levelled against him had been proven.

The charges include leading the execution of intellectuals, mass killing, rape and loot during the nine months of bloodshed 43 years ago.

Prosecutor Mohammad Ali said the verdict was “historic” while the defence cried foul saying it was “sham of a judgment”.

Law Minister Anisul Huq said he was satisfied with the tribunal's verdict. “The government is satisfied as well. We accept the verdict...”

Ruling Awami League said with the conviction the nation took a step ahead in purging itself of the stigma it had been carrying for four decades.

Nizami's son Najeeb Momen declined comment. "I'm busy. Please talk to [defence counsel] Mr Tajul [Islam]," he said when approached.

Jamaat alleges the verdict is a government ploy to eliminate its top brass and has decided to hit the country with shutdown for three days.

The 71-year old, already carrying a death sentence in the 10-truck arms haul case, headed a militia group which carried out a systematic plan to torture and execute pro-liberation elements during the war.

The Al-Badr vigilantes were almost exclusively drawn up from Jamaat’s erstwhile student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha. As head of the Sangha at that time, Nizami went on to command the notorious militias.

Justice Rahim began with preliminary remarks before reading out the summary of the 204-page judgment shortly after 11am.

Two other judges of the tribunal Jahangir Hossain and Mohammad Anwarul Haque were present in the heavily-guarded court crowded with lawyers, journalists and observers.

Currently the head of Bangladesh’s largest Islamist organisation, Nizami is the third minister to be convicted for war crimes. The former industries and agriculture minister cut a forlorn figure while the judgment was being delivered, says bdnews24.com correspondent Quazi Shahreen Haq at the scene.

It was in a stark contrast to the powerful man who had remained one of the most feared and hated figures of Bangladesh.

He was brought to Dhaka from Gazipur's Kahsimpur Central Jail on Tuesday night and taken to the tribunal on Wednesday morning.

Nizami sat forlorn in the court’s lockup cell. With his trademark Jinnah cap, clad in a white kurta and brown vest over it, Nizami looked about blankly, bdnews24.com’s Suliman Niloy said.

The judgment was postponed three times – the latest being on Jun 24 when he was said to have been too ill to be moved from prison, much to the anger of the freedom fighters while Ganajagaran Mancha activists saw conspiracies behind the delay.

Hordes of 1971 war veterans waiting outside the court, youths who converged on Shahbagh intersection at the call of Ganajagaran Mancha and people across the country greeted the conviction.

The decision was denounced by Nizami’s defence team as a breach of justice. They said they would appeal against the verdict.

“This verdict will never stick... it is a most unhappy judgment,” defence counsel Tajul Islam said.

Islam, one of the defence lawyers representing the Jamaat leadership, said the tribunal had stepped beyond its jurisdiction by commenting on Nizami’s appointment as minister during the 2001-06 BNP-Jamaat government.

Tuesday’s announcement of a verdict the next day ratcheted up tensions and security forces braced for extra measures.

Armed Jamaat men had hit the country with spiralling violence for days last year after the convictions of several party leaders, leaving around 200 people dead.

The verdict says Nizami, Islami Chhatra Sangha chief during 1971, was involved in ‘planning and conspiring’ for mass-killing, murders, rapes and loot at different villages in Pabna and instigated and helped the perpetrators to commit crimes.

It says he was involved in murders of intellectuals in Dhaka just before Bangladesh won independence from Pakistan and that carries the ‘supreme responsibility’ for the crimes.

But his lawyer Tajul Islam said: “I’ve just spoken to him (Nizami), he said ‘everything they said about me are lies’.”

Law Minister Huq said they would take measures to swiftly implement the sentence.

Nizami’s trial began on May 28, 2012 after his arrest on July 29, 2010 for allegedly hurting religious sentiments.

On Aug 2, 2010, he was shown arrested for committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War.

The trial took a little over two years.

On Dec 11, 2012, the prosecution brought specific charges against Nizami and on Dec 28 the court took them into cognisance.
 

Charges and Sentences
 

Charge 1 (Guilty)

Nizami has been held responsible for killing Pabna Zilla School teacher Kasim Uddin, who was perceived to be a supporter of the campaign to free the country from Pakistani occupation, in June, 1971.

He guided the Pakistan Army personnel who had arrested Uddin from his house before torturing and shooting him and two others dead in his presence.

Sentence: Life in prison

Charge 2 (Guilty)

On May 10, 1971 Nizami invited residents of Baushbarhi village of Pabna's Santhia Upazila to a gathering at Ruposhi High School premises to announce that Pakistan Army was due to ensure peace. The troops arrived on May 14 and killed 450 people of Baushbarhi and Demra villages at Santhia.

They also raped 30 to 40 women and forced many others to leave the country with assistance from Nizami and his associates.

Sentence: Death by hanging

Charge 3 (Guilty)

The prosecution stated that Nizami regularly visited the physical training centre at Dhaka's Mohammadpur, where auxiliary forces abetting the Pakistan Army were trained to unleash a reign of terror during the war and intellectuals were taken there blindfolded and killed, and women were raped.

The charge said "as a chief of the Al Badr Bahini", Nizami visited the place for hatching conspiracy with Pakistan Army officers to commit war crimes and his complicity with the crimes committed there had been found.

Sentence: Life in prison

Charge 4 (Guilty)

In April 1971, a group of Razakars, or Pakistan collaborators, upon orders from Nizami, killed Habibur Rahman Sarder at a bus stop in Karamja village of Pabna allegedly for helping the freedom fighters.

Upon guidance and plans by Nizami, Pakistani troops surrounded the house of a Hindu man, Megha Thakur at Karamja village on May 8, 1971, killing several men and raping three women. Razakars accompanying the army looted the house after the murders.

Sentence: Death by hanging

Charge 5 (Not guilty)

Twenty-one unarmed civilians were killed when the army attacked the Arparha and Bhuter Barhi villages on Apr 16, 1971, aided by Nizami and his associates. Houses of the village were looted and set on fire then.

Sentence: Acquitted

Charge 6 (Guilty)

On Nov 27, 1971, the Pakistan Army raided the house of Abdul Awal and other houses nearby at Dhulaurha village of Pabna. Thirty people were held during the raid and brought to a local school before they were shot dead. The prosecution stated that the operation was conducted under the guidance of Nizami.

After the army left, Razakars led by Nizami captured another 22 people and killed them by the bank of Ichhamoti River.

Sentence: Death by hanging

Charge 7 (Guilty)

On Dec 3, 1971, upon information from Nizami, the army arrested one Sohrab Ali from his home at Brishalikha village in Pabna.

He was tortured to glean information about his son Md Adbul Latif Selim, a freedom fighter. Ali was later shot dead in presence of his family members.

Sentence: Life in prison

Charge 8 (Guilty)

Nizami and Jamaat Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed, then the secretary of ICS, visited the MP Hostel in the capital on Aug 30, 1971. Nizami ordered the murder of several youths including Shafi Imam Rumi, son of ‘Shaheed Janani’ (Mother of the Martyrs) Jahanara Imam.

Sentence: Life in prison

Charge 9 (Not guilty)

It describes the shooting of 70 people and torching of 72 houses at Brishalika village of Berha Upazila in Pabna on Dec 12, 1971, by Pakistan troops who were tipped off by Nizami.

Sentence: Acquitted

Charge 10 (Not guilty)

Local Razakars destroyed the house of Anil Chandra Kundu at Sonatola in Sathia in Aug 1971, as the man was said to have joined the Liberation War.

Sentence: Acquitted

Charge 11 (Not guilty)

This one puts Nizami at the scene of a meeting organised by ICS unit of Chittagong in Aug, 1971 where he incited the Muslims. "Pakistan is the house of Allah...there is no power on earth that can destroy Pakistan," Nizami said in his address.

The prosecution said that through his speech Nizami intended to exploit religious sentiments of the people and incite them to "commit crime against Banglaees, who were struggling to oust Pakistani occupation and auxiliary forces from Bangladesh."

Sentence: Acquitted

Charge 12 (Not guilty)

The next charge is his inciting Muslims to go after freedom fighters on Aug 22, 1971 in a meeting held at Islamic Academy Hall in Dhaka. Addressing the meeting, Nizami had urged pious people to take up arms against the enemies of Pakistan.

Sentence: Acquitted

Charge 13 (Not guilty)

This one also accuses Nizami of inciting Muslims by addressing a meeting in Dhaka on Sept 8, 1971 marking the Defence Day of Pakistan.

Sentence: Acquitted

Charge 14 (Not guilty)

Nizami misinterpreted two verses of Surah Tauba of the Quran for inciting a gathering of Razakars at a meeting at the Jessore district headquarters on Sept 10, 1971.

"By quoting the Holy Quran and invoking religious sensitivities, you (Nizami) incited Razakar members to take revenge and eliminate those fighting to free Bangladesh," it states.

Sentence: Acquitted

Charge 15 (Not guilty)

This describes Nizami as conspirator as he regularly used to visit Sathia Razakar camp in Pabna during the war.

Sentence: Acquitted

Charge 16 (Guilty)

The last charge is about Nizami orchestrating and executing the killing of intellectuals on Dec 14, 1971 as the head of 'Al Badr' militia force.

Sentence: Death by hanging

The trial

There were 26 prosecution witnesses, including the investigating officer, in Nizami’s case.

The prosecution claimed that they had been able to prove 15 out of 16 charges made against Nizami, except for charge number 5, for which they could not produce enough evidence.

The first prosecution witness, Misbahur Rahman Chowdhury, said Nizami was a leader of the Al-Badr vigilante militia during the Liberation War.

Chowdhury is a former member of Jamaat's student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha and currently heading a faction of Islami Oikya Jote.

The Al-Badr brigade is widely known to have spearheaded execution of the intellectual elites of Bangladesh just days before the victory on Dec 16, 1971.

Prosecution witness 56-year old freedom fighter Mohammad Habibur Rahman Habib told the tribunal that Nizami was involved in the killing of his father.

Hailing from Pabna, the witness said that his father was brutally murdered in front of their house on Oct 14, 1971 when coming home from evening prayers. One of the killers there admitted later that it was upon Nizami’s orders that he had killed Habib’s father.

Another prosecution witness told the tribunal that he saw Nizami line up at least 20 people, minutes before they were beheaded by Pakistani army on the banks of Ichhamati.

Khalilur Rahman, also a freedom fighter, said that Nizami guided the Pakistan army to round up all the males from Dhulaurha village on Nov 27 night.

Nizami’s name has come up in the tribunal’s previous trials as well.

During the trial of Jamaat Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed, who was sentenced to death on July 17, prosecution witness Jalaluddin ‘Bichchhu’ Jalal accused Nizami of torturing him.

Jalal, a member of Dhaka’s guerrilla group ‘the Crack Platoon’, put both Nizami and Mujaheed at 112, West Nakhalparha, a torture camp for freedom fighters, in August 1971.

He told the tribunal the two men had tortured him for information and the identity of his fellow fighters.

Eight former and current leaders of Jamaat and its erstwhile student front and two BNP leaders have been convicted until now.

From killing fields to the Cabinet

Nizami rose through the ranks of Islami Chhatra Sangha in the 1960s. During the war he was picked by the Pakistani army to be one of the leaders of the Al-Badr militia, which was specially trained and superior to the other collaborator groups.

After the war Nizami escaped with Ghulam Azam to the UK. In 1978, then President Gen Ziaur Rahman repatriated them and brought Jamaat back into politics.

Nizami has been an MP twice. In his second run, in 2001, he was made the industries minister and then agriculture minister by Khaleda Zia.

He also became the chief of Jamaat that year, taking the post from Azam who died in prison last week serving his 90-year term for war crimes.

Two nooses

In January this year, Nizami received another death sentence from a court for his part in smuggling 10 truckloads of arms and ammunition into Chittagong in 2004.

Nizami was handed the death sentence in that case along with Lutfozzaman Babar, former BNP state minister for home, and Assamese separatist leader Paresh Barua.

(Reporting from court by Quazi Shahreen Haq and Suliman Niloy, additional reporting by Golam Mujtaba Dhurba and Kamal Hossain Talukder)

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