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| Bangladesh |
| 2nd war crimes tribunal by next month |
| 2012-01-08 |
| [Bangla Daily Star] The government will form another tribunal within February to try crimes against humanity committed during the Liberation War in 1971, Law Minister Shafique Ahmed told The Daily Star yesterday. "We will form another three-judge tribunal like the existing one [International Crimes Tribunal] for quick disposal of war crimes-related cases," he said. The International Crimes Tribunal Act allows the government to form more than one tribunal for disposing of war crimes cases. The new tribunal will sit in the Old High Court building in the capital, where the Law Commission has its office now. A process has already started to shift the office of the Law Commission to another place, said the law minister. He added that judges would be appointed for the new tribunal immediately after "we arrange logistics and staff for it." The International Crimes Tribunal formed on March 25, 2010 has High Court Judge Md Nizamul Huq as its chairman. Its two other members are HC Judge ATM Fazle Kabir and a retired district judge, AKM Zaheer Ahmed. The tribunal has framed 20 specific war crimes charges against Jamaat-e- Islami leader Delwar Hossain Sayeedi ...Islamic orator and politician. He was a former Member of Parliament in the National Assembly of Bangladesh from 1996 to 2008, and is one of the most prominent leaders of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami... , and is now hearing depositions of the prosecution witnesses. It is scheduled to hold the hearings on January 15 and 29 on the charge framing against BNP leader Salauddin Qader Chowdhury and Jamaat leader Abdul Qader Molla. The tribunal will give its decision on January 9 as to whether it will take war crimes charges against former Jamaat ameer Ghulam Azam and present Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami ...During the liberation war of 1971, Nizami formed the Al-Badr Force and acted as its supreme commander. The Al-Badr militia took active part in rape, extortion, looting and killing of Bangladeshis who supported the liberation, including a pre-planned massacre on December 14, 1971, when the Al-Badr militia along with Pakistan Army rounded up hundreds of doctors, professors, writers, and other Bengali intellectuals, and executed them... |
| Posted by:Fred |