MA Zahid Hossain Khokon
BNP leader MA Zahid Hossain Khokon indicted in absentia on 11 charges, including genocide, murder, torture, abduction and confinement of people and complicity in crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.
The International Crimes Tribunal-1 fixed November 3 for the opening statement of the prosecution.
The prosecution witnesses would be examined on that day too before the three-member tribunal headed by Justice ATM Fazle Kabir.
Justice Jahangir Hossain Selim read out the war crimes charges framed against the fugitive BNP leader.
Khokon, now 70, was a local leader of Razakar, an auxiliary force of the Pakistani army, in Faridpur district during the war.
He was involved in at least 13 incidents of war crimes, which left at least 50 people dead, eight others seriously injured and two women raped.
Besides, the war crimes accused was involved in forced conversion of Hindus, setting fire to numerous houses and two temples, and deportation of seven people, according to the charges levelled against him by the prosecution.
The prosecution submitted the charges against Khokon, also known as Khokon Razakar, to the tribunal through its registrar’s office on June 23.
The investigation agency designated to probe war crimes completed investigation into Khokon’s alleged war crimes on May 29.
According to the investigation agency, Khokon, who was a close associate to Abul Kalam Azad, a condemned war criminal from Faridpur, had taken part in an election campaign for a Jamaat-e-Islami candidate in 1970.
He was involved with the party and later he joined the BNP.
As the vice-president of Nagarkanda unit BNP, Khokon contested the municipality election in 2011 and became its mayor.
Source: The Daily Star
