[Dhaka Tribune] The lawyer for death-row convict war criminal 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...
has admitted before the court that the prosecution successfully proved that his client was a collaborator of the Pak occupation forces in 1971.
The counsel, however, argued that since the government was not trying the Pak Army for committing war crimes, it should consider the merit of trying a collaborator for abetting the Pak Army in war crimes.
It was the first time that any war criminal or his lawyer admits collaboration with the Pak Army that killed around three million people during the country's liberation struggle.
Earlier, two executed war criminals -- Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury -- sought presidential clemency, but were rejected. It means that they admitted the crimes for which they had been sentenced to death.
The defence counsel, Khandaker Mahbub Hossain, yesterday prayed to the court to commute Nizami's death sentence to life imprisonment if the apex court found him guilty of his wartime offence. He also urged the court to acquit his client of all the charges.
Nizami, now 75, was the chief of al-Badr force as the head of Jamaat-e-Islami
...
The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka
The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an
independentbranch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
's then student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha in erstwhile East Pakistain. He later became the chief of All Pakistain Chhatra Sangha. The incumbent Jamaat chief was sentenced to death on four charges and life-term jail on four others.
In response to a question after the hearing, Mahbub said that seeking reduced punishment did not mean admitting the crimes.
"The prosecution has proved that Nizami was a collaborator. But they could not prove that Nizami was involved with any particular offence.
"The prosecution has brought witnesses to prove that Nizami was with the Pak Army. [So] they [Army] should be the main accused [in the case]. Here, the [Pakistain] Army is not being tried. So, the court should judge the justification of the trial of Nizami as an abettor [of war crimes]."
He questioned whether the collaborators, who accompanied the Pak Army personnel during operations, had the ability to assist them in committing the crimes.