Three sentenced to death, five life in prison for Bangladesh 1971 war crimes

DHAKA, July 18 (NsNewsWire) — A special tribunal in Bangladesh sentenced three persons including several Islamist party leaders to death on Monday and five others life in prison for crimes against humanity during the country’s war of independence in 1971, reports Xinhua.
The International Crimes Tribunal-1, led by its Chairman Justice Shahinur Islam found Ashraf Hossain, Sharif Ahammed and Abdul Bari guilty of the charges brought against them.
The charges include rape, murder, confinement and torture of unarmed civilians.
Most of the accused including the death row convicts Hossain and Sharif were reportedly involved in politics of opposition Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party, an ally of ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
According to the investigation agency of the war crimes tribunal, all the accused were involved with Al-Badr, an auxiliary force of the then Pakistani occupation army, in the country’s Jamalpur district, some 197 km north of capital Dhaka.
Two of the accused, who are in police custody, were taken to the tribunal for verdict delivery at 10:30 a.m. local time Monday.
Remaining six of the accused including all the three death row convicts have been absconding.
After returning to power in January 2009, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, daughter of Bangladesh’s independence hero Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, established the first tribunal in March 2010, almost 40 years after the 1971 war.
Four leaders of opposition Jamaat Motiur Rahman Nizami, Abdul Quader Molla, Muhammad Kamaruzzaman and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid have already been executed for war crimes.
Apart from them, opposition BNP leader Salaudin Quader Chowdhury was executed on Nov. 22 last year.
Both BNP and Jamaat have dismissed the court as a government “show trial,” saying it is a domestic set-up without the oversight or involvement of the United Nations.
The government of Hasina said about 3 million people were killed in the war.  Enditem