A court has sentenced six people, including former Gaibandha Jamaat MP Abu Saleh Mohammad Abdul Aziz Mia, popularly known as Ghoramara Aziz, to death for war crimes during the 1971 Liberation War.
A three-member bench of the International Crimes Tribunal announced the verdict on Wednesday.
According to the decision, the court found the suspects guilty on all three charges presented by the prosecutors. It sentenced them to death in two of the charges and to life in prison in the third.
Of the convicts, Aziz Mia, 60, Mohammad Ruhul Amin alias Manju, 63, Abu Muslim Mohammad Ali, 60, Mohammad Nazmul Huda, 62, and Mohammad Abdur Rahim Mia, 64, are all at large.
Mohammad Abdul Latif, 63, was present in court to hear the verdict.
The tribunal said the home ministry and the inspector general of police must take the necessary steps to arrest the absconding convicts and carry out their sentences.
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The accused, along with 25-30 Pakistani soldiers, swooped down on several houses in Moujamali village in the Gaibandha Sadar Upazila on Oct 9. They captured and tortured four innocent unarmed pro-liberation men and later killed one of them — Ganesh Chandra Barman — by throwing him into water with his arms and legs tied. The accused looted houses of the detainees.
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The accused gunned down Chhatra League leader Boyz Uddin on Oct 13 and dumped his body underground.
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The accused, supported by Pakistani Army members, detained 13 union council chairmen and members on Oct 10-13. They later killed them near a river and dumped the bodies.
The accused, supported by Pakistani Army members, detained 13 union council chairmen and members on Oct 10-13. They later killed them near a river and dumped the bodies.
“We have not received a fair trial,” Latif’s lawyer Khandker Rezaul Alam told the media after the hearing. “We will appeal.”
“The allegations the prosecution has attempted to prove do not carry the penalty of capital punishment,” said state counsel for the absconding convicts MH Tamim.
“The documents provided as evidence in 2001 and 2007 were created for a political purpose.”
All of the convicts would be acquitted if they turned themselves in to the court and appealed the decision, he said.
“We are satisfied with the decision,” said prosecutor Sayedul Huq Sumon. “We have received justice.”
The verdict is the 29th by the International Crimes Tribunal since its formation in 2010. Thus far the court has sentenced 36 war criminals to death.
Source: Bdnews24.
