JS passes amended war crimes trial bill

The parliament on Thursday unanimously passed the International Crimes (Tribunals) (Amendment) Bill 2009 which is expected to expedite the process for prosecution of the 1971 war crimes.
Members of the treasury bench expressed their support to the amendments to the law, originally enacted in 1973, by thumping the desks.
The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its allies abstained from attending the just-concluded budget session of the parliament over a seating arrangement dispute.
The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, who pledged speedy trial of the collaborators of the Pakistani occupation forces, who had committed crimes against humanity during Bangladesh’s nine-month war of independence, was present at the house.
Piloted on Wednesday, the bill was scrutinised by the parliamentary standing committee on the ministry of law, justice and parliamentary affairs by noon Thursday. It brought any individual and group of individuals under the purview of law on charge of 1971 war crimes.
The law, justice and parliamentary affairs minister, Shafique Ahmed, who placed the bill, said that the amendments to the principal law had been brought to ensure fairness and transparency in the prosecution of the war crimes.
‘It is expected that the trial process of the war criminals would be fair and transparent if the proposed amendments are approved by the house,’ the law minister told parliament, hoping that the trial would also be acceptable to the international community.
He said that the international community had been asking Bangladesh for ensuring fairness in the trial and the government was sincere about its transparency.
Any individual or group of individuals besides members of the armed forces, defence forces or any auxiliary force, which had committed genocide and crime against humanity and peace, would come under the purview of the law.
The crimes defined in the law are: murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, abduction, confinement, torture, rape or other inhuman acts committed against any civilian population or persecution on political, racial, ethnic or religious grounds.
The law defines crime against peace as planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of a war of aggression, or war in violation of the international treaty, agreements or assurances.
It mentioned that genocide meaning and including any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, religious or political group such as killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent birth within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The law defines war crimes as mainly violation of the laws or customs of war which includes, but not limited, to murder, ill treatment, or deportation to slave labour; murder or ill treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages and detainees, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessities.
The crimes also include violation of any humanitarian rules applicable in arms conflicts laid down in the Geneva Convention of 1949; any other crimes under international law; attempting, abetting, or conspiring to commit any such crimes; complicity in or failure to prevent any such crimes.
The law has provisions for appointing the chairman of the tribunal from among the judges of the Supreme Court or a person qualified to be a judge of the Supreme Court or anyone who served as the judge of the tribunal.
The law also has a provision for ensuring independence of the tribunal.
The proceedings of the court will be both in Bangla and English language.
Now that the bill has been passed, the government will have the right to file appeal against any acquittal as the law previously preserved only the right of the accused to file appeal against the court’s order.
After assuming office, the Awami League-led alliance government passed a resolution in parliament on January 29 seeking speedy trial of the war crimes as an earlier initiative to bring the perpetrators of the 1971 war crimes was halted with the political changeover in the mid-1970s.
Those accused of collaborating with Pakistani troops in the atrocities committed 38 years ago would be tried under the International Crimes Tribunals Act, under which the government would set up one or more tribunals with three or four members.
The government, earlier, barred suspected war criminals from travelling abroad.
According to historians, some three million unarmed people were killed during Bangladesh’s war of independence against Pakistani forces in 1971, some 200,000 women were violated and tens of thousands of homes were torched by Pakistani forces and their local collaborators.

Courtesy of NewAgebd