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310 more people indicted

Admin — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 21:17:45 +0000

A Dhaka court on Wednesday charged 310 more people with murder and other criminal offences committed during the rebellion at the headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles, now renamed as Border Guard Bangladesh, in February 25–26, 2009.
With the 310, the court has so far charged 740 people, including civilians and border guard soldiers out total 847 accused in the case.
Earlier on July 20, the court framed charges against 430 people, including former BNP lawmaker Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu and local Awami League leader Torab Ali, and a number of deputy assistant directors for murder and 25 other criminal offences committed during the rebellion.
Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge Mohammad Jahurul Haque on Wednesday began framing charges against the accused persons by reading out their charges and the court asked whether the accused pleaded guilty or not. None of the accused pleaded guilty.
The court started framing charges against the accused at the makeshift courthouse set up on the Aliya Madrassah ground at Bakshi Bazar in the capital amid tightened security, power outages and excessive hot weather on the day.
The court read out the charges against the accused individually in the overcrowded room till 1:05pm with two breaks including a 30-minute break for power outage.
Most of the accused wanted to say something when the charges were being framed but the court did not allow anyone to speak.
The court did not pay heed to their speech and just asked, ‘Tell me, you pled guilty or not.’
A middle-aged civilian accused, Javed, told the court that there was nobody to whom ‘we can tell our plight… I was picked up from a roadside tea-stall by the law enforcers one year ago on charge of BDR carnage and I was implicated with the charges…’
The court did not allow him to complete his sentence and asked him to answer whether he pleaded guilty or not.
s the court asked accused Subedar Elias whether he was accused or not, he replied, ‘I was asked to be one of the witnesses of the case. As I denied doing so, I was made an accused.’
During framing of charges, Arshad Ali, another accused, requested the court to tell him the number of witnesses to the charges brought against him.
But the court denied telling him the number of witnesses set for him, saying, ‘There is no opportunity to do so.’
Many of the accused told the court that they were arrested one year after the mutiny took place in their headquarters.
Nayeb Subedar Nurul Islam told the court that he was arrested one year after the mutiny took place in the headquarters while he was not involve with mutiny.
During the proceedings, an apparently sick accused, Nayek Shahidul, told the court that he was suffering from diabetics, paralysis and other diseases.
He applied to the court for a directive so that his fetters and shackle, and hand-cuff could be removed. The court, however, did not give any directives.
At once, one of defence counsels, Sultan Mahmud, approached the dais and requested the court to consider the rights of the accused as they were most of the time kept with hand-cuffs, fetters and shackles.
As excessive heat made the court proceedings difficult, some defence counsels, including Faruque Ahmed and Sultan Mahmud, at about 1:00pm requested the court to adjourn the proceedings for the day.
The court agreed to adjourn the proceedings. ‘It is very hot. We are uncomfortable due to excessive heat and the accused are hungry,’ the presiding judge said while adjourning the proceedings till August 10.
But one of the prosecutors, Mosharraf Hossain Kajal, snatching the microphone from the defence lawyers, repeatedly requested the court to continue with a short break. The court, however, denied continuing.
Of the accused, 829 including Nasir Uddin and Torab Ali, a retired Subedar, were present in the courtroom.
The Criminal Investigation Department filed two cases — one under the Penal Code for murder, arson, robbery and other crimes and the other under the Explosive Substances Act for illegally taking up arms — against 850 border guard personnel and civilians.
Three of the accused have meanwhile died and they were not indicted. Twenty of the accused are still in hiding.
A total of 75 people, including 57 army officers, were killed at Pilkhana, the headquarters of the BDR in course of the mutiny on February 25-26, 2009.

-With New Age input

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HRW calls for ensuring fair trial for BDR mutiny defendants

Admin — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 21:14:53 +0000

Human Rights Watch on Wednesday urged the government to immediately stop mass trials of the alleged mutineers of the Bangladesh Rifles, now renamed Border Guard Bangladesh, on February 25-26, 2009 to ensure fair trial.
The US-based rights watchdog in a statement said that those responsible for killing 75 people during the February 2009 mutiny by the border guard should be held accountable and the the courts must meet international fair trial standards.
The rights organisation expressed concern at the mass trial completed on June 27, 2011, in which 666 members of the 24th Border Guard Battalion were tried by a BGB tribunal, a ‘military court.
All but nine were found guilty and sentenced to terms ranging from four months to seven years in prison.
‘It is impossible to try hundreds of people at the same time and expect anything resembling a fair trial,’ said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
‘The massacre shocked Bangladesh, but each of the accused should only be found guilty if the government provides specific evidence against them,’ he added.
On February 25-26, 2009, members of the paramilitary force had staged a rebellion that killed 75 people, including 57 officers from the army.
The accused have been held and prosecuted in violation of Bangladesh’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Many were detained without charge for several months, said Adams.
He further alleged that the government did not produce individualised evidence against each detainee while all the 6,000 accused faced trials before special BDR tribunals created after the massacre.
Some 847 of the accused also face charges under the Bangladesh criminal code, some of which carry death penalty, he pointed out.
The rights group documented the deaths of some of the accused in custody in the first few months after the mutiny.
The detainees’ lack of access to counsel remains a serious concern, said HRW.
From the time they were arrested in February 2009 until December 2010, the accused in the mutiny cases were not allowed to consult with their lawyers.
Since then, they have been allowed a 20-minute consultation at the beginning and end of each court day and a 30-minute consultation in between.
Many of the accused in both the military and civilian cases have no legal counsel, in some cases for financial reasons and in others for lack of information.
Lawyers involved in the cases have complained to the HRW that it was impossible to provide an effective defense to each accused with so many clients and so little time to talk to each accused.
The possible use of capital punishment in the upcoming criminal trial of the 847 accused heightens fair trial concerns, it said.
According to the prosecutor’s office, some defendants share their lawyers with as many as 12 others in the same case.
In addition to the concerns about time for consultations, the potential for conflict of interest is significant, as evidence that could prove one person’s innocence could indicate another’s guilt.
The rights group opposed the death penalty in all cases as a fundamentally cruel and irreversible punishment.
‘The BDR mutiny was ugly and brutal, but the current approach appears to be a witch hunt against a group rather than an attempt to identify the individuals responsible for specific crimes,’ Adams said.
‘The government should rethink its approach to make sure the masterminds and perpetrators of serious offenses are brought to fair trial, but end the prosecutions of the rank-and-file who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ said the Asia director of HRW.

-With New Age input

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Plotters not identified

Admin — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:48:54 +0000

Soldiers’ grievances not met
Even two years inside the February 25-26, 2009 rebellion in the then Bangladesh Rifles, later renamed Border Guard Bangladesh, the plotters of the bloody mutiny are still unidentified, the conspiracy is yet to be cracked, and the grievances, identified by two probe bodies as the primary reasons for the rebellion, have not yet been addressed.
Seventy-five people – 57 army officers, a retired army man, wives of two army officers, 9 BDR soldiers, 5 civilians, an army soldier and a police constable – were killed in the BDR headquarters in Dhaka in February 25-26, 2009 when the soldiers took up arms against their officers from the army.
The government on March 2, 2009 formed a committee, headed by former secretary Anis-uz-Zaman Khan, to investigate the rebellion. The committee submitted its report to the home ministry on May 21, 2009. The army also formed a ‘court of inquiry’ to investigate the rebellion and the body submitted its report to the army chief on May 10, 2009.
None of the probe reports has yet been made public. New Age, however, could obtain the copies of the reports.
The army court of inquiry in its report recommended formation of a high-level court of inquiry to investigate the involvement of civilians and institutions with the rebellion observing that the court of inquiry had failed to identify the masterminds as it could not obtain information on them because of its limitations.
The government inquiry committee, in its report, also said it could not identify the masterminds and plotters of the rebellion and the killings as it lacked tools and techniques to interrogate the suspects and unearth the truth and none of the people brought before the committee provided any crucial information or proof. It also recommended a further inquiry to identify the plotters.
No such inquiry, recommended by both the investigation committees, has yet been conducted to identify the masterminds and to unearth the conspiracy.
The Criminal Investigation Department on July 13, 2010 submitted charge sheet against 801 soldiers and 23 civilians, including former Bangladesh Nationalist Party lawmaker Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu, Hazaribagh Awami League leader Torab Ali and Dhaka City Corporation councillor Suraiya Begum, for committing criminal offences, including murder and robbery, during the rebellion.
Twenty-five charges were pressed against the soldiers under 25 sections of the Penal Code. The charges include criminal conspiracy, waging war against the state through the rebellion, conspiracy against the state, sedition, murder, attempt to murder, rioting, wrongful confinement of officers and their families, causing injuries to officers and their families, mischief by firing or explosion, theft and destroying evidence by burying the slain officers in mass graves and hiding some of the bodies in manholes or in drains.
Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge Mohammad Jahurul Haque, however, on February 3 granted a prosecution petition for further investigation into the case and ordered the CID to submit the investigation report by March 3.
Meanwhile, 1,065 soldiers have so far been sentenced to imprisonment of various terms – from four months to seven years – by different special courts of the border guards on charge of the mutiny.
Grievances of most of the soldiers identified by the two probe committees as primary reasons for the rebellion have been overlooked.
Both the probe bodies recommended reorganisation of the paramilitary force and the government has already reformed the BDR renaming it Border Guard Bangladesh and changed its uniforms.
The Border Guard Bangladesh Act 2010 was also enacted on December 6, 2010 for the border guards repealing the Bangladesh Rifles Order 1972 and raising the maximum punishment of the force personnel on mutiny charges from seven-year imprisonment to death penalty without any scope for appeal to any civil court or the Supreme Court.
The government has reformed the border guards without addressing the demands and grievances of the soldiers.
The army’s court of inquiry identified a dozen reasons, including grievances and misunderstanding of the soldiers, for the rebellion.
Reasons for the rebellion as identified in the report includes wrong impression about the facilities of the army, lack of transparency in establishing and running BDR shops, delay in payment of duty allowances for the 2008 national elections, misunderstanding about lease and contracts of different works in the BDR headquarters, irregularities in admission to schools in the headquarters and wrong impression about the BDR’s director general Shakil Ahmed, his wife Nazneen Shakil and Dhaka sector commander Mujubul Haque’s alleged involvement in irregularities, and delay made by the home and finance ministries in resolving BDR problems.
The investigation committee instituted by the home ministry found that discontent among the BDR soldiers about their commanding officers deputed from the army had been latent for long.
It recommended that a balance should be struck in the facilities for the military, paramilitary and law enforcement agencies.
The home secretary, Abdus Sobhan Sikder, said the government had started taking measures in line with the recommendations of the investigation committee.
‘The grievances identified by the committee as primary reason for the carnage, including their promotion, have been addressed in the new law…The BDR has been reformed in line with the probe committee report,’ he told New Age on Thursday.
After the mutiny, the government has increased the amount of rations for BDR soldiers to 100 per cent from 60 per cent.
‘The committee has identified the soldiers’ grievances and their demand for increased allowances as the primary reasons for the mutiny… Besides, Dal Bhat Programme, punishments meted out to soldiers, irregularities in running BDR shops and schools and luxurious living of officers fuelled the discontent,’ Anis-uz-Zaman said when he disclosed the report to the media on May 27, 2009.
The committee found that the grievances the BDR soldiers had harboured against their commanding officers from the army were the immediate reason for the rebellion and hinted that the players behind the scenes might have pulled the strings capitalising on the discontent to destabilise the country in a planned manner.
It, however, could not establish the real cause and motive for the carnage and suggested further investigations to identify the plotters. The committee suggested revision of the service tenure of the BDR soldiers in line with that of the army.
The government investigation committee said that a group of BDR soldiers had met a number of politicians before the mutiny taking up with them their demands that included 100 per cent rations, increase in border allowance, recruitment of cadre officers for the BDR, revision of its pay structure in line with that of the army and sending BDR soldiers to UN peacekeeping missions.
The committee, among others, suggested formation of a central intelligence coordination committee and reallocation of businesses for the intelligence agencies as long-term measures.

Courtesy of New Age

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All 111 soldiers jailed in first Dhaka verdict

Admin — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:14:04 +0000

One hundred and eleven soldiers of the records wing of the Border Guard Bangladesh, formerly Bangladesh Rifles, were on Tuesday sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for varying terms on charges of the February 25–26, 2009 mutiny in the border guards’ headquarters in Dhaka.
The special court 9 of the Border Guard Bangladesh, chaired by the force’s Dhaka sector commander Colonel Habibul Karim, also fined the convicts Tk 100 each.
This was the first verdict in a case filed on mutiny charges in Dhaka after the 2009 rebellion. Trial of 10 more cases against 3,959 soldiers of 10 units of the Dhaka sector and the BGB headquarters are going on.
The court pronounced the verdict in the makeshift courtroom in the Durbar Hall where the rebellion broke out on February 25, 2009.
Of the 111 soldiers, 43 were given the highest punishment — rigorous imprisonment for seven years under Bangladesh Rifles Order 1972. No one was acquitted of the charges.
Ten were jailed for six years and six months, 9 for six years, 10 for five years and six months, 4 for five years, 1 for four years and six months, 5 for four years, 16 for three years and six months, 6 for three years and 7 for two years and six months.
The court ordered execution of the sentences from February 1 in civil prisons.
Habibul Karim in his 15 minutes speech before pronouncing the verdict said that the court had upheld Article 45 and 152 of the constitution to maintain discipline in the 215-year-old paramilitary force.
The court has also considered the socio-economic conditions of the accused, their previous behaviour and performance in service, the court said adding that it had also given special consideration to the soldiers who are from the family of freedom fighters.
Habibul said that the court had recorded depositions of 48 prosecution witnesses in nine working days and three defence witnesses in a working day and heard the arguments in five days.
Although the accused named 11 people as defence witnesses, only three of them turned up.
Two other judges of the court were Lieutenant Colonel Nasimul Alam and Major Ali Mustain Khan.
Deputy attorney general Mostafa Zaman Islam assisted the court as the representative of the attorney general.
Prosecutor of the case Lieutenant Colonel Mizanur Rahman, five lawyers appointed by the accused to assist them and a BGB official, designated by the court to assist the accused, were present when the verdict was pronounced. The accused were in the dock, handcuffed, in shackles and in civil dress.
Fifty-four of the soldiers were charged with disobeying the command of the then BDR director general, major general Shakil Ahmed, and leaving the Durbar Hall during the annual congress on February 25, 2009, the first day of the rebellion in which 75 people, including 57 army officers, were killed.
The charges brought against other soldiers included leaving the Durbar Hall showing solidarity with the mutineers, rising in arms, staying inactive by not preventing the mutiny, and failing to control unruly subordinates.
Besides the 111 sentenced on the day, 3,959 more soldiers of 11 units of the Dhaka sector and the headquarters are under trial.
This was the 18th verdict in the cases field across the country in connection with the rebellion. The day’s verdict took to 675 the number of BGB soldiers sentenced on mutiny charges so far.
The first verdict in mutiny cases was pronounced in Panchagarh on April 7, 2010. Twenty-nine soldiers of the 25 Battalion were jailed.
Later in 2010, special courts sentenced 50 soldiers of the 20 Battalion on April 12 in Thakurgaon, 57 soldiers of the 9 Battalion on April 18 in Feni, 56 soldiers of the 7 Battalion of Nildumur at Shyamnagar on April 19 in Satkhira, 9 soldiers of 12 Battalion of Langadu in Rangamati on May 2, 35 soldiers of 10 Battalion’s Bolipara camp on November 9 in Bandarban, 23 solders of the 31 Battalion on November 23 in Lalmonirhat, 20 soldiers of the 3 Battalion on December 23 in Jaipurhat, 39 soldiers of the 21 Battalion on December 29 in Sylhet, 59 of the 38 Battalion on December 30 in Sylhet and 29 of the 1 Battalion on December 31 in Brahmanbaria.
In 2011, the courts jailed 35 soldiers of the 15 Battalion of Naikhyangchari on January 3 in Bandarban, 23 soldiers of the 40 Battalion of Phulbari on January 16 in Dinajpur, 25 soldiers of the 43 battalion on January 24 in Naogaon and 61 soldiers of the Sylhet sector Sadar battalion on January 31 in Sylhet.
The courts have so far acquitted 18 soldiers of the charges — one in Thakurgaon, five in Feni, four in Satkhira, one in Lalmonirhat and five in Sylhet.

Via: New Age

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