The International Crime Tribunal (ICT) has accepted war crimes charges against nine people including former Jamaat lawmaker Shakhawat Hossain.
The tribunal also cleared three accused of the charges saying that there were no specific charges against them.
They are -- Md Akram Hossain, Azihar Morhal and Moshiur Rahman. Of them, Akram and Azihar are in jail and Rahman is absconding.
The eight other charged accused are -- Md Billal Hossain Biswas, Md Ibrahim Hossain, Sheikh Md Mujibur Rahman, MA Aziz Sardar, Abdul Aziz Sardar, Kazi Ohidul Islam, Md Lutfur Morhal and Md Abdul Khalek.
Shakhawat and Billal are in jail now. “The court has ordered to arrest the seven absconding accused and has fixed September 30 for hearing,” said a prosecutor Rezia Sultana.
The prosecution pressed the charges against 12 people, showing four of them as arrested and the rest as fugitives on July 27.
The accused were allegedly involved in killing two persons, raping one and torturing two others in Keshabpur of Jessore between mid-September and mid-October in 1971.
According to prosecution, Shakhawat was a central committee member of Islami Chhatra Sangha and a commander of Razakar force at Chingra Bazar camp during the liberation war.
Shakhawat is now the religious affairs secretary of Jatiya Party. He was elected lawmaker from Jessore-6 from the Jamaat in 1991. He left the party and joined BNP. During the 2014 national election he contested from JP from Jessore-6, but could not win.
Police arrested him from his house in Uttarkhan in the capital on November 29, 2014.
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The charges against the nine persons include abduction, confinement, torture and rape of a woman at Keshabpur Upazila’s Boga village, abduction, torture and murder of Chandtulya Gazi and his son Atiyar of Keshabpur Upazila’s Chingra village, abduction and torture of Md Nuruddin Morhal of Keshabpur Upazila’s Chingra village, abduction, torture and murder of Abdul Malek Sardar of Keshabpur Upazila’s Hijaldanga village and abduction, torture and murder of Miron Sheikh of of Keshabpur Upazila’s Mahadebpur village, arson and looting several houses of the village.