The International Crimes Tribunal (Bangladesh), abbreviated as ICT (Bangladesh), is a domestic war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh set up in 2009 to investigate and prosecute suspects for the genocide committed in 1971 by the Pakistan Army and their local collaborators the Razakars, Al-Badr and Al-Shams during the Bangladesh Liberation War. During the 2008 general election, the Awami League (AL) pledged to try war criminals. The government set up the tribunal after the Awami League won the general election in December 2008 with a more than two-thirds majority in parliament.
The War Crimes Fact Finding Committee, tasked to investigate and find evidence, completed its report in 2008, identifying 1,600 suspects. Prior to the formation of the ICT, the United Nations Development Programme offered assistance in 2009 on the tribunal's formation. In 2009, the parliament amended the 1973 act that authorised such a tribunal to update it. The first indictments were issued in 2010. However, the main perpetrators of the war crimes, the Pakistan soldiers, remained out of the reach of the courts.
By 2012, nine leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamist party in the nation, and two of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, had been indicted as suspects in war crimes. Three leaders of Jamaat were the first tried; each were convicted of several charges of war crimes. The first person convicted was Abul Kalam Azad, tried in absentia as he had left the country; he was sentenced to death in January 2013.
The ICT initially received some offers of international assistance. In 2009, the UN offered its expertise, expressing an interest in helping Bangladesh avoid the problems other countries faced in similar trials. The European Union has passed three resolutions supporting the trials and Jean Lambert has said "she expected that the trial would conform to the highest standard possible."
However, since the beginning of the trials, several human rights organisations and international legal figures have raised objections to the court proceedings. Human Rights Watch, which initially supported the establishment of the tribunal, have criticised it for issues of fairness and transparency, as well as reported harassment of lawyers and witnesses representing the accused. Bianca Karim and Tirza Theunissen have written that the international community have voiced concerns that the trial will not be transparent or impartial.
Jamaat-e-Islami supporters and their student wing, Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir, called a general strike nationwide on 4 December 2012, which erupted in violence. The group demanded the tribunal be scrapped permanently and their leaders be released immediately.
Annual public opinion polls regularly rank the war-crimes trials ranked among the top three "positive steps that the government has taken", though the issue is not considered among the top ten most pressing issues facing the country. Polling in 2013 by AC Nielsen found that more than two-thirds of Bangladeshis characterise the ICT as "unfair" or "very unfair", though 86% support its implementation.
In February 2013, Abdul Quader Molla, Assistant Secretary General of Jamaat, was the first person sentenced to death by the ICT who was not convicted in absentia. Initially, Molla was sentenced to life imprisonment, but demonstrations, including the 2013 Shahbag protests in Dhaka, led to a new punishment. Following Sheikh Hasina's resignation as Prime Minister, the newly formed interim government of Bangladesh reconstituted the tribunal in 2024, appointing six judges to Tribunal-1 and Tribunal-2 to prosecute those identified as masterminds of the July massacre.
The tribunal subsequently faced criticism over alleged human rights violations and concerns of politicisation.
Background The events of the nine-month conflict of the Bangladesh Liberation War are widely viewed as genocide; the Pakistan Army and collaborators targeted masses of people, intellectuals and members of the political opposition for attacks. Historians have estimated that, during the conflict, between two hundred thousand and four hundred thousand women and children were raped leading to an estimated 25,000 war babies being born. Estimates of persons killed during the conflict range to three million. An estimated ten million refugees entered India, a situation which contributed to its government's decision to intervene militarily in the civil war. Thirty million people were displaced.
In 2009 Shafique Ahmed, the Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, announced that the trials would be organised under the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act 1973. This act authorises prosecution only of persons living within Bangladesh who were members of the armed forces, including paramilitary groups. The act was amended in 2009 to update it, and the International Crimes Tribunal Rules of Procedure and Evidence were put in place by 2010. Some critics maintain that further amendments are needed to bring the act up to the standards of international law.
Formation of the tribunal
Seeing the broad support for war crimes trials, the Awami League-led fourteen-party alliance included this in their election platform. The Four-Party Alliance, including the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami, had several alleged war criminals among their top-ranking politicians."No against war criminals won" , The Daily Prothom Alo, 31 December 2008, collected from ICSF Media Archive
The former freedom fighters and sector commanders of the liberation war pleaded with citizens against voting for the alleged war criminals."Plead not to cast vote for traitors and war criminals", The Daily Prothom Alo, 27 December 2008 The fourteen-party alliance won the election on 29 December 2008, with an overwhelming majority, a "historic landslide". This was thought to be due to their commitment to prosecute war crimes. On 29 January 2009, Mahmud-us-Samad Chowdhury, a member of the parliament (MP) from the Awami League (AL), proposed taking action to establish a tribunal to prosecute war crimes during a session of the Jatiyo Sangshad. A resolution was passed unanimously calling on the government to proceed as promised in the election.
In 1973 the newly independent government of Bangladesh passed a law, the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act (ICT Act 1973), to authorise the investigation and prosecution of the persons responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other crimes under international law committed in 1971. The act was "a complete law in itself".
On 25 March 2009 the government voted to try the war criminals according to the ICT Act of 1973 but planned amendments to bring the law up to date and in keeping with international standards for similar trials. As a part of the amendment procedure, the government sent the act to the Law Commission, where it was scrutinised by specialist lawyers, judges and professors of the universities. On 9 July 2009, Parliament amended the act as recommended by the commission.
The amendments provided that a political party that had worked against the liberation of Bangladesh could be tried on the same charges as individuals. They also authorised the government to file appeals with the Appellate Division if the tribunal ruled for acquittal for a suspect. The International Bar Association has stated that the "1973 Legislation, together with the 2009 amending text, provides a system which is broadly compatible with current international standards."
On 25 March 2010, the government announced the formation of the following: a three-member judges' tribunal, a seven-member investigation agency, and a twelve-member prosecution team to hold the trials according to the ICT Act of 1973. This landmark announcement was made on the 39th anniversary of the Operation Searchlight massacre by the Pakistan Army on 25 March 1971.
The three judges appointed were Mohammed Nizamul Huq as chairman, with A.T.M. Fazle Kabir and A.K.M. Zahir Ahmed.
Persons appointed to the investigative agency to assist state prosecutors were Abdul Matin, Abdur Rahim, Kutubur Rahman, ASM Shamsul Arefin, Mir Shahidul Islam, Nurul Islam and M. Abdur Razzak Khan.
Golam Arif Tipu was named as Chief Prosecutor. The others are A.K.M. Saiful Islam, Syed Rezaur Rahman, Golam Hasnayen, Rana Das Gupta, Zahirul Huq, Nurul Islam Sujan, Syed Haider Ali, Khandaker Abdul Mannan, Mosharraf Hossain Kajal, Zead Al-Malum, Sanjida Khanom, and Sultan Mahmud Semon.
Indictments The first nearly dozen men indicted include nine leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamist party in the nation, which was opposed to independence in 1971: Ghulam Azam, in 1971 chief of the erstwhile East Pakistan unit of the party; incumbent chief Matiur Rahman Nizami; deputy Delwar Hossain Sayeedi; secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid; assistant secretaries general Muhammad Kamaruzzaman and Abdul Quader Molla; media doyen Mir Kashem Ali, who heads the pro-Jamaat Diganta Media Corporation; Miah Golam Parwar; and Abul Kalam Azad, an Islamic cleric formerly associated with the party.
Two leaders of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party were also indicted: former government ministers Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Abdul Alim.
Accused and verdicts
Abul Kalam Azad Abul Kalam Azad, a nationally known Islamic cleric and former member of Jamaat, was charged with genocide, rape, abduction, confinement and torture. He was tried in absentia after having fled the country; the police believe he is in Pakistan. In January 2013 Azad was the first suspect to be convicted in the trials; he was found guilty of seven of eight charges and sentenced to death by hanging. Azad's defence lawyer, a prominent Supreme Court lawyer appointed by the state, did not have any witnesses in the case; he said Azad's family failed to co-operate in helping locate witnesses and refused to testify.
United Nations human rights experts expressed concern that the trial did not meet all the criteria of a fair trial and due process. Speaking for the British government, Sayeeda Warsi said of the verdict, "The British government supports the efforts of Bangladesh to bring to justice those responsible for committing atrocities during the 1971 War, although we remain strongly opposed to the application of the death penalty in all circumstances." The French Ambassador to Bangladesh, Michel Trinquier, and the German Ambassador Albrecht Conze each said that individual nations must find their own ways to deal with past events. The US state department has said, "The United States supports bringing to justice those who commit such crimes. However, we believe that any such trials must be free, fair, and transparent, and in accordance with domestic standards and international standards Bangladesh has agreed to uphold through its ratification of international agreements, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."
Abdul Quader Mollah On 5 February 2013, the ICT sentenced Abdul Quader Mollah, assistant secretary of Jamaat, to life imprisonment. Mollah was convicted on five of six counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes. He was accused of shooting 344 people and the rape of an 11-year-old girl. In protest of the trials which it said were politically motivated, Jamaat members called a general strike in Dhaka that erupted in violence.