Kamaruzzaman cries ‘wrong judgment’

Convicted war criminal Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mohammad Kamaruzzaman has protested his death sentence saying the judgment is ‘worng’.

The International Crimes Tribunal-2 on Thursday found the Jamaat Assistant Secretary General guilty of five out of seven war crime charges committed during the 1971 Liberation War levelled against him.

ICT-2, formed to expedite trials of crimes committed during the nation’s struggle for freedom, indicted Kamaruzzaman on June 4 last year on seven counts of crime against humanity.

At a packed courtroom, ICT-2 Chairman Justice Obaidul Hassan said five charges including that of mass murder, murder and torture had been proven against the Jamaat leader who was a teenager during the war.

“Wrong judgment, wrong judgment… Everyone will be judged by posterity …” Kamaruzzaman, the third leader of the party to be convicted, shouted as the verdict was read out.

“History will not spare anyone,” the convicted war criminal said even as he appeared gloom.

The defence has said it is ‘appalled and shocked’ at the verdict and claimed the prosecution had ‘clearly failed’ to prove the charges’. It questioned the ‘procedural fairness’ and claimed the ‘verdict is not supported by the evidence adduced by the Prosecution’.

It said an appeal will be filed against the verdict.

Kamaruzzaman’s elder son Hasan Iqbal said his father was a teenager during the Liberation War and argued it was impossible for such a young man to hold a superior post in the greater Mymensingh region.

“His (Kamaruzzaman) name could be found no where [in lists of war criminals] before 2010… His name never figured in history or in any newspaper reports,” Iqbal claimed.

“Suddenly the prosecution levelled war crimes allegations against him in 2010,” he alleged.

“We never expected justice from this court,” the convicted war criminal’s son said.

The Sheikh Hasina-led government set up the war crimes tribunals to try crimes perpetrated during the nation’s Liberation War to purge the stigma Bangladesh has been carrying for over 40 years.

Several top leaders of the Jamaat are standing trials on war crimes charges at the two tribunals that have already sentenced three men, including two from Jamaat, on such charges. The party had collaborated with the Pakistan army to thwart the Bengalis’ struggle for freedom, according to the tribunals.

Jamaat has been claiming the tribunals had been set up to carry out political vendetta.

BNP chief Khaleda Zia, key ally of the party, had dubbed the trials ‘farce’.