At long last Ghulam Azam has received justice for the crimes he committed during 1971. This man who has walked free for the last 42 years has been sentenced to spend 90 years in jail, a sentence, that if carried out, means that he will never see freedom again, and will end his days behind bars.
It may not be the death penalty that so many people had wanted, and which his crimes, proved beyond a reasonable doubt, without question merited, but it is certainly some measure of justice. Let us not lose sight of the fact that he has been found guilty on all five counts, and that the impunity he enjoyed all these years has come to an end.
For too long, he has been permitted to escape justice and had never been called to account for his crimes. Now he has been judged by a court of law and found guilty, and we should celebrate this pronouncement of guilt for the momentous occurrence that it is.
We should not lose sight of the fact that the important thing about the war crimes trials was to bring to justice those who committed crimes against humanity in 1971 and to set the historical record straight.
The verdict against Ghulam Azam does just that. Whether he was sentenced to death or 90 years, and how we feel about the sentence, should not obscure or minimise this fact.