19 th November – Justice order of the day -Bongo Bondhu Murder case
SC delivers Bangabandhu verdict at 11:00am today as nation waits to see culprits behind the horrendous crime get punished
The nation waits to hear the ultimate verdict today in the Bangabandhu murder case trial with bated breath and also in the expectation that finally justice will prevail. It has been a long, painful journey for the people of Bangladesh. It ought not to have been this way, for the particular reason that the liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistani occupation in December 1971 was considered symbolic of a clean break with the past. That Bangalees would see democracy grow in their country, that under the leadership of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman they would go forth to create Shonar Bangla, a cause the Father of the Nation had consistently espoused since he emerged with his Six-Point programme of regional autonomy in the mid-1960s, was not a misplaced expectation. Indeed, it was a dream that seemed eminently attainable with Bangabandhu as the undisputed leader of this country
At least 12,000 extra policemen have been deployed in Bangladesh ahead of a verdict in the trial of army officers accused of killing the first president.
Authorities say they are concerned that supporters of the five army men on trial may try to disrupt proceedings.
The trial began 10 years ago and the last stage has seen the final appeal of the alleged killers.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was killed in 1975, just four years after leading Bangladesh to freedom from Pakistan.
Five of the accused are in prison in the capital, Dhaka. Six others are on the run abroad.
The killers were a group of young army officers, who went on to murder not just the charismatic president, but also his wife, three sons, two daughters-in-law and about 20 other relatives and aides.
Mr Rahman’s daughter Sheikh Hasina, who was re-elected prime minister in December, escaped the massacre only because she was out of the country at the time.
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Bangladesh began the trial after Rahman’s daughter, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, who was abroad during the coup, became prime minister in 1996 and overturned an indemnity law passed by the military government 11 years earlier.
After Rahman’s death “the murderers were indemnified, which is unprecedented in history,” Wali-ur Rahman, a former trial coordinator and now director of the Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs research body, said by phone from the capital, Dhaka. If the Supreme Court upholds the death sentences “it will be historic,”
Police will “focus their attention on diplomatic areas, the Dhaka central jail, the Supreme Court and judges’ complex,” Home Secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder said from Dhaka. The increased security will continue after today’s verdict, he said.
A five-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice Taqfazzul Islam, will deliver the verdict at 11 a.m. Bangladesh time today, according to a statement posted on the Web site of Hasina’s ruling Awami League alliance.
Party leaders and supporters have been instructed to be on the alert after “subversive incidents” occurred during the trial, the alliance said in a separate statement.
Threatening Letter
Increased security is needed because Attorney-General Mahbubey Alam last month received a letter from an unidentified person threatening to kill him and family members if the army officers weren’t released, Sikder said.
Unidentified attackers last month threw a bomb at the car of legislator Fazle Noor Tapas, an Awami League member, Reuters reported at the time. At least a dozen people were injured in the attack. Tapas, who escaped unhurt, is one of the lawyers taking part in the trial process, according to the report.
Death sentences were handed down on 15 army officers by a court in 1998 and the group first appealed the ruling in 2000, Bangladesh’s New Nation newspaper said on its Web site. Three officers were later acquitted.
Seven of the killers fled Bangladesh and “are staying abroad,” Sikder said. The five in jail will have 30 days to file an appeal against the Supreme Court judgment and their last option is a mercy petition to the president, Sikder said.
The killers were “sent abroad as diplomats,” the Bangladesh Institute’s Rahman said. “Many countries, especially in the Middle East, accepted them.”
Trial Delayed
Hasina’s government couldn’t complete the trial process while in power and the administration led by Prime Minister Khaleda Zia didn’t “pursue the matter at all” when it took over in 2001, Rahman said.
A military-backed government declared emergency rule in January 2007 and started an anti-corruption drive that resulted in the arrests of leading politicians, including Hasina and Zia, causing further delays.
“The masses wanted a clear and fair trial,” Retired Major General, A.N.M. Muniruzzaman, president of the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies, said by telephone from Dhaka. “It is a long awaited trial. It went through a very lengthy legal process” that was “very transparent.”
“No one can complain on that count,” he said.
The government is also taking precautions after the recent arrests in Bangladesh of Lashkar-e-Taiba militants from India and Pakistan, Muniruzzaman said.
Militants Active
More than 50 Islamic militants from both the countries are active in Bangladesh and police have arrested six Indians and three Pakistani militants since May 27, Bangladesh’s daily New Age newspaper reported on Nov. 15, citing Monirul Islam, deputy commissioner of the country’s detective branch.
Bangladesh, which has had at least five military coups since its creation in 1971, was hit by its first suicide bombings in 2005, attacks that were blamed on the Jamaatul Mujaheedin Bangladesh terrorist group.
Eighty-three percent of the country’s 156 million people are Muslim and almost 40 percent of the population lives on less than $1 a day.
“We hope the judgment of the high court will be sustained,” Rahman said. A verdict in favor of the government will uphold the rule of the law, he said.
“The sense of impunity that is prevailing in the country today will be gone,” Rahman said.
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