Pro-government
activists and other Bangladeshi people gather to protest
as they demand the death penalty for Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Mollah in Dhaka. -
AP Photo
as they demand the death penalty for Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Mollah in Dhaka. -
AP Photo
DHAKA: Bangladesh’s cabinet approved on Monday changes to war
crime laws to ensure opposition leaders on trial for alleged atrocities
during the nation’s 1971 independence war can be swiftly executed if
convicted.
The move came amid huge demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of
people in Dhaka for the past seven days calling for quick executions of
the 10 alleged war criminals currently being tried on such charges as
genocide and rape.
Two others have already been convicted.
The demonstrations began after the war crimes tribunal last week
handed a life sentence to a leader of the largest Islamic party — a term
critics condemned as too lenient.
The demonstrators include students, bloggers, academics and journalists.
Cabinet secretary Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said the cabinet, led by
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, approved the changes, allowing the state
and victims to contest the life term for Abdul Quader Molla of the
Jamaat-e-Islami party.
The cabinet also set a 60-day limit for the Supreme Court’s Appellate
Division to dispose of appeals, Bhuiyan said, meaning someone getting a
maximum death sentence can be hanged this year.
“Previously there were no rules on disposing of an appeal at the Appellate Division,” he told reporters.
Bangladesh’s legal system is notoriously slow with the judiciary
overwhelmed by millions of cases, meaning some take years to be heard.
“Now, a new rule has been added under which an appeal (against a war
crime verdict) must be disposed of within 45 days. If not possible… the
Appellate division will get another 15 days. The total is 60 days,”
Bhuiyan said.
The parliament “will pass the law within a few days”, he said.
The war court, called the International Crimes Tribunal despite
having no international oversight, last month sentenced a fugitive
Islamic TV preacher to death for murder during the 1971 war.
Last Tuesday, Molla, Jamaat’s fourth-highest ranked leader, who was
accused of mass murder, became the first opposition leader to be
sentenced.
Eight other Jamaat officials, including its head and deputy head and
two senior officials of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party
(BNP), are also being tried by the tribunal. Most of the cases are at
an advanced stage.
Both Jamaat and BNP have labelled the cases “show trials” aimed at
barring the leaders from upcoming polls. International rights groups
have questioned the proceedings.
The life term for the Jamaat-e-Islami party leader triggered
nationwide protests with Jamaat rejecting the verdict and its
supporters clashing with police, resulting in at least four deaths.
The government says the trials are needed to heal the wounds of the
nine-month war in which it says three million people were killed, many
by pro-Pakistani militia whose members allegedly included Jamaat
officials.
Mujibur Rahman, the father of the current prime minister, had planned
to put alleged war criminals on trial before his assassination in a
coup in 1975, which Hasina says was masterminded by war criminals.
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