War crime verdict: Siraj death sentence and Akram life time prison

A war crimes tribunal is reading out the verdict of two Bagerhat men accused of crimes against humanity that they allegedly committed during Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971.

International Crimes Tribunal-1 headed by Justice M Enayetur Rahim started to read out the summary of the 133-page verdict around 11:00am.

Earlier in the morning, the accused Sheikh Sirajul Haque alias Siraj Master and Khan Akram Hossain were taken to tribunal premises around 9:00am for their verdict.

One other Abdul Latif Talukder, who was also accused along with these two men, has been abated from the trial as he died while undergoing treatment at a Dhaka hospital a few days ago.

On June 11, 2014, police arrested the 68-year-old Latif in his home after the tribunal issued an arrest warrant against Latif, Sirajul and Akram over crimes committed during the 1971 Liberation War.

On November 5, 2014, ICT-1 indicted the three on seven charges of which four were brought against Sirajul alone, two against all of them for killing 47 people and one against Akram and Latif for killing a person. The accused, however, pleaded “not guilty” to the wartime offences.