Arrest warrant for Mir Quasem Ali

ICT-1 chief orders police to produce the Diganta TV supremo before the tribunal within 24 hours.

Dhaka, Jun 17 (bdnews24.com) – Bangladesh's first war crimes tribunal on Sunday issued an arrest warrant for Jamaat-e-Islami executive council member Mir Quasem Ali for crimes against humanity during the 1971 War of Independence.

The three-judge International Crimes Tribunal -1, set up to deal with the 1971 war crimes, gave the order in response to the prosecution's plea.

Tribunal chairman Justice Mohammad Nizamul Huq directed the police in his order to produce the Jamaat leader before his court.

Prosecutor Rana Dasgupta stood before tribunal to move the application praying for the Jamaat leader's arrest.

He mentioned a number of charges against the head of Diganta Media, which runs a television station and a daily newspaper, that had come to light from interviews with witnesses and victims

The prosecutor read out three specific charges against Mir Quasem where he was actively involved in detaining pro-liberation people and taking them to a hotel, which served as a Razakar torture camp.

Witnesses and victims apparently told the investigators that people were confined to different rooms of the Mahalaya Dalim Hotel in Chittagong and tortured.

Tribunal chair, Justice Huq told Dasgupta that he need not read all the charges that the investigators had found until now, and asked him to move on to the next part of the petition.

Dasgupta said that the prosecution would, then, expect that the tribunal would take all the charges into consideration.

The prosecutor said that Mir Quasem Ali was a leader of the Islami Chhatra Sangha, student wing of Jamaat, which was later renamed as Islami Chhatra Shibir. As a Sangha leader, Mir Quasem led the formation of Al-Badr and was its head in Chittagong and third in its overall line of command.

Currently a member of the Jamaat executive council, Mir Quasem has been spreading negative propaganda about the proceedings of the tribunal, said Dasgupta and further stressed that he needed to be arrested in the interest of effective investigation.

"In addition, being an influential person, the accused could go into hiding or flee the country any time. Moreover, witnesses are being threatened for speaking out against him."

The prosecutor said that Mir Quasem remaining at large could end up hindering the trial proceedings and the ongoing investigation against him.

Justice Huq noted that lawyer's arguments that Quasem needed to be arrested in the interest of "effective and proper investigation" since witnesses "were feeling terrorised thinking of their future".

The judge also noted Mir Quasem's influence and his ability to spread negative propaganda about the tribunal's proceedings.

Given the situation, Justice Huq said, "We are of the view that an arrest warrant may be issued."

Subsequently he ordered that police arrest Quasem, serve upon him the warrant and produce him before the tribunal thereafter.

However, the tribunal chief ordered that police look after Quasem Ali's situation between the time he is arrested and produced before him.

Earlier, Prosecutor Zead-Al-Malum confirmed bdnews24.com that the application requesting an arrest warrant had been submitted in the morning.

Mir Quasem is currently an Islami Bank director, a member of Ibn Sina Trust, and also a director of non-government organisation Rabeta Alam Al Islami.

The senior Jamaat leader, who is from Manikganj's Harirampur, was better known as 'Mintu' to the people of Chittagong during the war.

After independence, Mir Quasem had fled to Saudi Arabia and returned after Bangladesh founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family was massacred on Aug 15, 1975.

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