“He (Rapp) read all the four verdicts declared so far on the website and expressed satisfaction over the fair trial. They also told me that they didn’t get any element that can make the trial controversial,” he said while talking to the journalists at his office.
The US envoy expressed his satisfaction at a meeting with the minister at the latter’s secretariat office on Wednesday. US ambassador to Bangladesh Dan W Mozena was also present at the meeting.
“They have good conception of transparency, standard, neutrality of war crimes trial as the judges of the tribunals delivered the four verdicts citing the examples of many countries where similar incidents took place,” Shafique said.
He claimed that no country in the world had been able to hold the trial in such a transparent and neutral way as Bangladesh is doing. “For the reason, there’s no scope to raise questions about the transparency and neutrality of the trial.”
When the US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues inquired to the minister as to why the death penalty was given, Shafique said, “I make them understand that there’s no option but to award the death penalty for the crimes like heinous killing, killing of intellectuals, forcing someone to leave country and torching houses.”
Rapp, now visiting Bangladesh for the fourth times, in his last visit gave some recommendations to the government to bring changes to the war crimes law.
“I told him that the government brought necessary changes to the law,” the minister said.
