The verdict in the case of Mohammed Kamaruzzaman at the ICT on Thursday saw judgement centred on the defendant’s command responsibility as an organiser of al-Badr brigades – a vigilante force that aided Pakistani occupation forces during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.
The Additional Attorney General MK Rahman said that this element of the trial would “contribute” towards prosecution of Jamaat-e-Islami as a party.
“It will contribute to a decision to disband the Jamaat-e-Islami. This is the third judgement; in the previous two judgements [the party’s actions] have been addressed but in this judgement it has been said unequivocally that Jamaat-e-Islami as a party acted towards crimes against humanity,” MK Rahman told the Dhaka Tribune after the verdict had been delivered.
Much of the May 9 verdict centred on Kamaruzzaman’s role during the independence struggle as an organiser of al-Badr brigades in his native Mymensingh. The judges stated in their verdict al-Badr brigades were responsible for “indiscriminate sexual aggression”.
Justice Mozibur Rahman Miah read out the verdict and in summing up said: “al-Badr was the armed wing of Jamaat e Islami,” and that the prosecution had, “unequivocally proved that [Kamaruzzaman] was leader of al-Badr.”
Much of the evidence brought in the tribunal consisted of the pro-Pakistan press reports of the day, such as from the Jamaat’s mouthpiece the Daily Sangram, with reporting focussed on the formation of the militias at the time. The Daily Pakistan newspaper named Kamaruzzaman as an Al-Badr, Justice Miah said in the judgement.
Kamaruzzaman’s “complicity [in al-Badr] constituted crimes against humanity,” Justice Miah said.
However, the defence said in a statement that a, “witness gave evidence that Md. Kamaruzzaman – then a teenager – had control over superior officers of the Pakistan Army, something which is impossible in a modern military structure.”
The defence has brought up the issue of prosecution based on membership in the past. In a February 26 US embassy cable, chief barrister of the JI, Abdur Razzak told the US Embassy: “It was not fair to hold the entire party responsible for the actions of some individuals, arguing that war criminals should be prosecuted individually.”
However, establishing command responsibility is a common feature of war crimes trials, with the establishment of a command structure essential for prosecuting individuals such as Osama Bin Laden and Japanese general Tomoyuki Yamashita at the Tokyo trials in 1945. In both such instances, as in the Nuremberg trials of 1945, merely being in nominal command of offending parties or even being a member of an organisation has constituted complicity in the eventual crimes.
Whilst legal proceedings against Jamaat as a party only became a reality following protests at Shahbagh earlier this year, in 2008 the US embassy suggested: “There are also strong indications the government [and military] of Bangladesh may be trying to use this [war crimes] issue as a means of easing out the current Jamaat leadership and promoting others from within the party.”
