The war crimes tribunal has found Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed, a top leader of the al-Badr force, guilty of committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War, and has sentenced him to death.
The International Crimes Tribunal 2 yesterday ordered that the 66-year-old be “hanged by the neck.”
The verdict came two days after another tribunal gave the former Jamaat chief 90 years’ imprisonment on Monday, triggering frustration among justice seekers who demanded the 1971 war crimes mastermind be hanged.
Mujaheed was the sixth individual convicted of crimes against humanity committed during the Liberation War and the fourth to get capital punishment.
The tribunal yesterday described Mujaheed as an “atrocious al-Badr” commander who was a conspirator, and was found guilty of mass killing, murder, abduction, torture, rape and persecution in 1971. Mujaheed was a technocrat minister in the 2001-06 cabinet of the BNP-Jamaat-led alliance government.
The tribunal framed seven charges against him, but the prosecution was able to prove five of them. Of the five, he was sentenced to death in two charges. The charges of genocide (charge two), and abduction and torture in another instance (charge four), were not proven beyond reasonable doubt.
Chairman Justice Obaidul Hasan of the tribunal and two other members, Justice Md Mozibur Rahman Miah and judge Md Shahinur Islam, were unanimous in finding Mujaheed guilty and thus they handed down the sentence of capital punishment.
Mujaheed’s verdict came only a couple of days after Jamaat Guru Ghulam Azam was sentenced to 90 years in prison for his war crimes.
After the verdict, chief defence counsel Abdur Razzaq said the defence would appeal against the verdict to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the prosecution expressed satisfaction over the verdict, saying: “The nation has received justice.”
According to the ICT Act, the defence and the prosecution will have to appeal within 30 days of the tribunal’s verdict delivery.
“This is hundred percent injustice,” Mujaheed said standing up in the dock after the verdict. “It has been given because of my Islamic movement.”
Ali Ahmed Mabrur, the youngest of Mujaheed’s four children, and also the only defence witness, was present in the courtroom yesterday. He said: “We did not get justice. Father is okay now. He asked us to pray to Allah for justice.”
The prosecution had placed 17 witnesses to prove the case against the Jamaat leader.
Wearing a white Panjabi, Mujaheed appeared in court in the morning. He was taken to the dock at 10:43am. The tribunal judges took two hours to read out the 37-page summary of the 209-page verdict from 11am.
In the judgement, Mujaheed was found “guilty of extermination of intellectuals” and involvement in the murder and torture of the Hindu community, for which he was given the death sentence. He received the death sentence for the first charge as well – the abduction and murder of renowned journalist Sirajuddin Hossain. The tribunal said the first charge was “merged” with the sixth charge.
The tribunal said Mujaheed would be convicted and condemned to a “single sentence of death” for the crimes as listed in charge six and seven, and “he be hanged by the neck till he is dead under Section 20(2) of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973.”
The tribunal said Mujaheed received the life sentence for his role in the abduction, torture and murder (charge five) of composer Altaf Mahmud, well-known freedom fighters Shafi Imam Rumi, Badi, Nizamuddin Azad, Jewel and Jahiruddin Jalal (who managed to flee and was present at the tribunal yesterday). For the third charge (another abduction and torture) he was given five years in jail.
On the charges in which Mujaheed was proven guilty, the tribunal said: “We are convinced from the evidence, oral, documentary and circumstantial, led by the prosecution and the sourced documents that the accused, at the relevant time had acted as an atrocious and potential leader of al-Badr to the actual accomplishment of the crimes charged and his access to the army camps is a fair indicative of his active and culpable affiliation even with the Pakistan occupation army.
“...we conclude that the accused Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujaheed was ‘concerned’ with and had ‘complicity’ to the commission of the offences in relation to charges one, three, five, six and seven for which he has been charged in the capacity of leader/head of al-Badr which was truly an ‘action section’ of Jamaat-e-Islami.”
Earlier on June 5, the tribunal concluded the proceedings of the case, fixing no date and time for the verdict. The case was kept as CAV (curia advisari vult, or reserving the judgement until a later time).
Mujaheed is the sixth convict of crimes against humanity under the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act 1973. Earlier, the tribunal 2 sentenced former Jamaat leader Abul Kalam Azad, also known as Bachchu Razakar, to death on January 21, Jamaat’s Assistant Secretary General Abdul Quader Mollah was sentenced to life in prison on February 5 and Senior Assistant Secretary General Kamaruzzaman to death on May 9 for crimes against humanity committed in 1971. The other tribunal sentenced Jamaat’s Nayeb-e-Ameer Delwar Hossain Sayedee to death on February 28 on similar charges and Ghulam Azam to 90-year jail on July 15.
