Bangladesh Islamist Ghulam Azam found guilty of war crimes

A Bangladesh war crimes court has convicted a top Islamic party leader of war crimes.

The court in Dhaka handed down a sentence of life in prison for Ghulam Azam Monday. The 90-year-old Azam was found guilty of masterminding atrocities carried out during the country’s 1971 war for independence from Pakistan.

The three tribunal judges said, as they announced the decision against Azam in a packed courtroom in the Dhaka, that he deserved capital punishment.

However, he received a jail sentence of 90 years or until his death instead because of his advanced age and health complications.

Rahman, junior attorney-general, said that Azam, compared by prosecutors to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, was sentenced separately in the five charges after being found guilty beyond reasonable doubt to a total of 90 years in prison.

“Some kind of justice is done but we are not happy,” Rahman said outside the court.

Azam is the spiritual leader of the country’s largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami.

Violence in response to the verdict broke out across Bangladesh, pitting Azam’s supporters against law enforcement personnel.

Azam was the head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party during the war in which the government says three million were killed, many by the militias he allegedly helped. Independent estimates put the death toll at between 300,000 and 500,000.

The International Crimes Tribunal, which was set up by the secular government in 2010, will deliver verdict against Azam on Monday, prosecutor Sultan Mahmud told to AFP.

Prosecutors have sought the death penalty for Azam, comparing him to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. They describe him as a “lighthouse” who guided all other war criminals and the “architect” of the militias which committed many of the 1971 atrocities.

Jamaat, the country’s largest Islamic party and a key member of the opposition, has called a nationwide strike on Monday to protest the verdict.

Azam is no longer politically active but is seen as Jamaat’s spiritual leader. He faces five broad charges of planning, conspiracy, incitement, complicity and murder and torture, alleging a total of 61 crimes.

Azam’s lawyer Tajul Islam said that the prosecution had completely failed to prove any of the charges, which were based on newspaper reports.

The verdict against Azam will be the fifth to be delivered by the ICT. Three Islamists have been sentenced to death and one given life imprisonment.

The verdicts triggered nationwide protests by Jamaat supporters, leading to mass violence in which 150 people were killed in clashes with police.

Eight more opposition politicians, six from Jamaat and two from the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, are also on trial.

The opposition has criticised the cases as politically motivated and aimed at settling old scores rather than meting out justice.

The government maintains the trials are needed to heal the wounds of the 1971 war.

Source: AFP and Agencies