People who are deemed fugitives and convicted by the International Crimes Tribunal cannot be brought back all on a sudden, say foreign ministry officials.
On the other hand, pro-liberation activists and some members of the prosecution team think it would have been possible to bring them back had the government appointed any strong lobbyist group in this regard.
According to the investigation agency’s probe report, war crimes accused and alleged al-Badr leaders Chowdhury Mueen Uddin and Ashrafuzzaman Khan have been living in London and New York for decades. The verdict in their case, filed for abduction and murder of intellectuals, will be delivered on Sunday.
This is the second war crimes case in which the trial was conducted in absentia as the tribunal’s attempts to have the accused in the courtroom failed. The trial against the duo began in July.
As per law, the tribunal ordered its registrar office to publish advertisements in two newspapers asking Mueen Uddin and Ashrafuzzaman to appear before it within 10 days from the date of publication. However, they did not appear before the tribunal.
Earlier, the tribunal convicted absconding war criminal Abul Kalam Azad, also known as Bachchu Razakar, who was an expelled member of Jamaat-e-Islami. No one knows his whereabouts.
Latest on October 9, Zahid Hossain alias Khokon Razakar, who is now in Sweden, was indicted for war crimes.
Shahriar Kabir, executive president of Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee, said, “We have been urging the government from the very beginning to try to bring back the war crimes accused by putting in place our highest diplomacy. But we do not think they did it properly.”
Prosecutor Tureen Afroz told the Dhaka Tribune that repatriation of the accused was possible “if we employ an active lobbyist group. We need strong diplomacy.”
She was hopeful that it was still possible even though it was already late.
Another prosecutor Shahidur Rahman thinks the prosecution team as well as the government did their job properly. He said, “We did our job; the foreign ministry is also trying to do their level best.”
He, however, admitted that after the order to start trial, “we do not know specifically which initiatives the government took to bring them back.”
Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque said they were working on the repatriation of the accused, but it would take more time. “We sent some papers to those countries where Mueen and Ashraf live. But we do not want to disclose anything on this.”
He also said they had not known the whereabouts of death-row convict Bachchu Razakar.
Activists claim that after framing of charges against the two al-Badr leaders, no effective initiative had been taken by the foreign ministry. On the other hand, accused Mueen Uddin gave an interview with an internationally renowned television channel and criticised the trial.
In the interview with Al Jazeera on July 20, Mueen termed the ongoing war trials “sham” and “joke,” and labelled the tribunal as a “kangaroo court.” He said he would never appear before it.
The comments came only four days after the tribunal had begun hearing on the case against him filed on 11 charges of wartime offences, including the killing of 18 intellectuals between December 11 and 15, 1971. Among the martyrs, nine were Dhaka University teachers, six journalists and three physicians.
In the interview, Mueen admitted that he had been a member of Islami Chhatra Sangha, Jamaat-e-Islami’s student front that was later renamed as Islami Chhatra Shibir. However, he denied his involvement with paramilitary force al-Badr, which has been blamed for atrocities including the killing of intellectuals. The al-Badr had been formed with the Chhatra Sangha members.
“I resigned from my political posts after the military crackdown [on March 25, 1971].”
He also claimed that he had not supported the military action on Bangalees.
Shahriar Kabir said, “When we all know that Mueen and Ashraf were among the ‘most wanted’ after the Liberation War for the killing of intellectuals. Their pictures were published in newspapers soon after the independence with a call for their capture. Then how could he act like this?”
He observed that if the accused had not been involved in war crimes, then he should have faced the trial.