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Bangladeshi war criminal Ghulam Azam died from a heart attack on Thursday aged 91, just over a year after being sentenced to 90 years in prison for masterminding atrocities during the country’s independence war. |
Azam was the head of Jamaat-e-Islami — the country’s largest Islamist party — when Bangladesh, then known as East Pakistan, fought a brutal nine-month war against Pakistan in 1971.
A special war court set up by the country’s secular government found Azam guilty in July 2013 of five charges of planning, conspiracy, incitement, complicity and murder during the conflict.
Azam “died of cardiac arrest at 10:10pm” at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University hospital in the capital Dhaka, the director of the clinic Abdul Majid Bhuiyan told reporters yesterday.
He became the second war crime convict to die in custody after Abdul Alim, a senior official of the main opposition party, died in August.
Azam’s son, Abdullahel Azmi, said earlier on Thursday that his father’s condition had deteriorated, prompting doctors to put him on life support.
“He was suffering from old age complications. He also did not get adequate care in the hospital,” his lawyer, Tajul Islam, said.
Islam said Azam would be buried in a family graveyard in Dhaka after a funeral yesterday.
Azam’s conviction last year sparked deadly protests by hardline Islamists and widespread celebration amongst secular groups.
There was no immediate comment from the government to Azam’s death and security was tight at the hospital as hundreds of Islamists gathered outside after the death was announced around midnight.
Secular protesters staged impromptu “victory” marches at Dhaka University, hailing Azam’s passing.
During his trial, Azam was described as the “architect” of pro-Pakistani militias responsible for many atrocities during the war, in which three million people were killed.
When India intervened at the end of the brutal conflict, the militias killed dozens of professors, playwrights, filmmakers, doctors and journalists.
Many of the bodies were found a few days after the war at a marsh outside Dhaka, blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their backs.
Azam was described as the “mastermind” behind the massacre of the intellectuals.
“The aim was to cripple the country intellectually. Without his consent it could not have happened,” state prosecutor Sultan Mahmud said on the day of Azam’s conviction.
“His role in the 1971 war was like Hitler’s in the Second World War,” Mahmud added.
After the war, Azam fled to Pakistan where he allegedly formed the East Pakistan Restoration Committee, portraying the liberation war as a conspiracy by India.
He left Pakistan for London in 1973 where he edited a Bengali newspaper and continued to campaign against recognising Bangladesh’s independence.
Prosecutors compared him to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and sought the death penalty but he was spared execution because of his age.
Under his leadership Jamaat opposed secession from what was then West Pakistan, which lay 2,000km (1,235 miles) away, with only Islam, the majority faith, binding the two peoples together.
After independence, Bangladesh cancelled Azam’s citizenship and banned Jamaat and other faith-based parties when it adopted a secular constitution.
Azam returned to Bangladesh bearing a Pakistani passport in 1978, three years after the nation’s founding leader Sheikh Mujib was assassinated.
A junta was in power which permitted Islamist parties to operate openly.
His political rehabilitation was complete in 1993 when the Supreme Court returned his citizenship. After the judgement, he offered some regret for past activities but fell short of giving a full apology for his wartime role.
A wily political operator, Azam played the key role of kingmaker throughout the 1990s, in the process reviving the fortunes of the party, once banned and universally loathed for its horrific wartime role.
A junta had taken over and was allowing Islamic parties to
operate openly again.
Under Azam’s stewardship, Jamaat staged a revival by setting up a new student wing that has become a formidable force with thousands of loyal cadres.
His political rehabilitation was complete in 1993 when the Supreme Court returned his citizenship. After the judgement, he apologised for his past activities but fell short of giving a full apology for his wartime role.
Although his party has never won more than 5% of votes, Azam has played the role of kingmaker repeatedly since
democracy was restored in 1990.
He shifted alliances, helping the nation’s two main rival parties to return to power in turn and in the process reviving the fortunes of the once universally despised Jamaat party.
In 1996, he allied with Sheikh Hasina, the current premier and daughter of independence hero Sheikh Mujib, helping force her bitter rival Khaleda Zia of the BNP to resign and accept a
caretaker administration.
Before he quit politics in 2000, he steered Jamaat back to an alliance with Zia’s centre-right party ahead of the 2001 polls. Zia won by a landslide and formed a cabinet which included two ministers from Jamaat.
Hasina did not forget the humiliating loss. She stormed back to power in 2009 on the back of growing youth-led anti-Islamist sentiment and this time she vowed to try all those who committed war crimes during the 1971 war.
In January 2012, an octogenarian and wheel-chair bound Azam was arrested at his home in the capital for war crimes. Eighteen months later his fate was sealed.
