Bangladesh war crimes court is adjourned

AFP/Dhaka

Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee (centre) emerges from the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal in Dhaka yesterday

A Bangladeshi court set up to try people accused of war crimes during the 1971 movement for independence was adjourned yesterday, delaying the outlining of the first charges. The Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal, which was established last year by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, will hear cases of alleged collaborators who are accused of crimes ranging from mass killings to rape. Delwar Hossain Sayedee, a senior official of the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamic party, was due to be charged yesterday but Judge Nizamul Huq adjourned the hearing after defence lawyers pleaded for a delay. “The defence councils are not prepared yet for the hearing because they did not have enough time to consult with the accused,” Huq said, adding that the next hearing would be on August 23. Sayedee, 71, has been accused of killing more than 50 people, torching villages, rape, looting and forcibly converting Hindus to Islam. “We have not been provided with sufficient time,” said Sayedee’s British lawyer Toby Cadman, who was not present at the hearing after being denied a visa to enter Bangladesh. “It is a very difficult environment in which to operate,” he told AFP by email before yesterday’s adjournment. “How can one expect a proper defence to the charges if fundamental rights are systematically withdrawn or denied?” Bangladesh has struggled to come to terms with its violent birth. The current government, led by Hasina, says up to 3mn people were killed in the war - many murdered by Bangladeshis collaborating with the Pakistani forces. Hasina is the daughter of independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The 1971 war began after tens of thousands of people were killed in the capital Dhaka when Pakistan launched Operation Searchlight, a campaign intended to deter Bangladeshis from seeking independence. The violence and subsequent military action that allegedly included mass killings, rape and torture served to create a groundswell of public support for the pro-independence movement. Sayedee has been held in detention along with four other war crimes suspects from Jamaat and two from the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). The BNP and Jamaat have dismissed the tribunal as a government “show trial”. The New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch has said rules being used to prosecute the war crime suspects fall short of international standards.