Prosecutors and investigators disagree with govt. plan 

Prosecutors and investigators of the war crimes tribunals and campaigners disagree with the government plan to merge the international crimes tribunals.

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Law Minister Anisul Huq has recently said that since the number of war crimes cases on trial has come down, the government will merge ICT-1 and ICT-2.

However, the coordinator of the investigation agency and some prosecutors have told The Daily Star that at least 30 cases are now at the pre-trial stage and the agency has received 600 more complaints.

If one tribunal is left to deal with all the upcoming cases, it would take more time to deliver justice to the victims' families, they said.

The decision to reduce the number of tribunals will be “suicidal” and a “betrayal to the nation”, said war crimes researcher Shahriar Kabir.

“We have already waited [for the trial] for 43 years. How many more years will we have to wait? We will not accept the decision,” he said.

Sector Commanders' Forum, an organisation of war veterans, has demanded that more tribunals be formed to speed up the disposal of war crimes cases.

The Awami League-led government formed the International Crimes Tribunal in March 2010, in line with the party's electoral pledge to try those who committed crimes during the country's liberation war in 1971. The second tribunal was formed two years later to expedite the trials.

The tribunals on August 6 amended their rules of procedures, giving a hint that one of them will remain functional, tribunal sources said.

Of the two provisions added, one says, “When any tribunal remains unformed, the case(s) under trial or at the pre-trial stage pending before it shall be deemed to have been pending before another functioning tribunal, and subject to the provision of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973, it shall proceed from the stage at which it was so before the former.”

The other reads, “Any of the functioning tribunals shall have the power to receive the record of another tribunal, when it remains unformed, together with the judgment, order and direction of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh rendered in an appeal, arising out its judgment, for the purpose of necessary compliance.”

Four out of six judges of the tribunals will return to the High Court and one new HC judge will join the rest two judges to form a tribunal, the sources said. The changes might take place in the first week of September.

The investigation agency has so far received 627 allegations against 3,420 people, said its coordinator Abdul Hannan Khan.

Trial of 24 accused in 21 cases is over. Two other accused are under trial. Investigations into five cases, including the case against the Jamaat-e-Islami as party, have been completed and 25 other cases are being investigated now.

The government would decide whether to reduce the number of tribunals, Hannan said, adding that many cases were pending and so if one tribunal dealt with those, the trial procedure would be delayed.

“It will also give a wrong signal to the society that the issue of war crimes trial has moved out of the policymakers' focus,” prosecutor Tureen Afroz said.

Zead Al Malum, another prosecutor, said that considering the number of pending complaints and the victims' expectations for justice, the government should rather engage more tribunals.