Bangladesh Begins Trial of Islamist for War Crimes

Bangladesh Begins Trial of Islamist for War Crimes
Saleem Samad

Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Some 40 years after the end of Bangladesh's war of independence, trials began of those suspected of committing war crimes during the conflict. Most of those charged are Islamist suspected of acting as henchmen of Pakistani army.

Delawar Hossain Sayedee, a Jamaat-e-Islami executive council member, is the first suspect to be face the court. He has been charged with 20 counts of war crimes.

Prosecutor Syed Rezaur Rahman began on Sunday reading 88 pages of a statement about the charges against Sayedee compiled by the International Crimes Tribunal.

On Oct. 3, Sayedee and six other members of Jamaat-e-Islami and the main opposition party Bangladesh Nationalist Party were detained on war crimes charges.

The suspect allegedly recruited a militia group from Pakistan. The armed group was said to be primarily engaged in genocide, murder, rape, arson, abduction and torture of civilians, mostly the minority Hindu community.

He has also been accused of proselytizing of Hindu minorities, converting between 100 to 150 to Islam.

Sayedee went into hiding after the Pakistan army formally surrendered in December 1971, creating the country of Bangladesh. He quietly returned to his home in Pirojpur in 1986. In the guise of an Islamic cleric, he began to give religious sermons at public gatherings.

Bangladesh would be first Sunni Muslim majoritarian nation to have war crimes suspects on the docks, which is likely to mitigate the longstanding demands of the survivors and family members seeking justice for 3 million deaths and another 400,000 sexually abused women by the marauding army and the Islamic militia.