Defence withdraws from BD war court

A special Bangladeshi war crimes court began outlining charges against its first suspect Tuesday but adjourned the hearing as defence lawyers withdrew in protest over fears of an unfair trial.
A senior official of the country’s largest Islamic party is the first suspect to face trial at the tribunal, set up by the government last year to try people over atrocities during Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence. Lawyers acting for Delwar Hossain Sayedee of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, who is accused of crimes including murder, rape and looting, said they had “reluctantly” withdrawn due to concern over legal procedures.
“As the prosecution read out the charges against our client, we found that they had not given us the most pertinent documents, including witness statements,” Tajul Islam, one of the defence lawyers, told AFP.
The court is called the International Crimes Tribunal but it is a domestic set-up with no United Nations oversight.
Toby Cadman, Sayadee’s senior lawyer, told AFP by email from London that due to the “wholly inadequate” assistance provided to the defence, they had “no choice but to abstain from the proceedings”.
Cadman was not able to attend the trial, which was adjourned until Wednesday, after being refused a visa. Sayadee, 71, has been accused of killing more than 50 people, torching villages, rape, looting and forcibly converting Hindus to Islam during the war of independence against Pakistan. Bangladesh, which was called East Pakistan until 1971, has struggled to come to terms with its violent birth.
The current government, led by Sheikh Hasina, says up to three million people were killed in the war — many murdered by Bangladeshis collaborating with 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 killings and subsequent military action — which 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.