The International Crimes Tribunal Bangladesh [4] (ICTB) on Feb. 18 convicted and sentenced Islamist leader Abdus Subhan to death. Subhan, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) political party, was charged and convicted of of mass killing, looting and arson during during the 1971 War of Liberation [5] against Pakistan. Subhan is the ninth senior leader [6] of his party to be convicted of war crimes since the tribunal opened in 2010.
The ICTB, which was established in 2009 under the International Crimes Act [7], is charged with investigating and prosecuting war crimes committed during the 1971 conflict, in which about 3 million people were killed. Asharul Islam is the sixteenth person to be convicted by the ICTB, and the thirteenth to receive a death sentence. Last week the tribunal sentenced [8] a former Bangladeshi junior minister to death for genocide and crimes against humanity.
In November the ICTB sentenced [9] Mobarak Hossain, a former commander of a collaborators' group of the Pakistani army, to death for his role in killings during the 1971 Independence War. Also in November the Supreme Court of Bangladesh upheld the death sentence [9] of Islamist politician Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, who was assistant secretary general of the JI party. In October another JI party leader, Motiur Rahman Nizami, was sentenced to death [10] for war crimes.
Activists have long called for the banning of the country's largest Islamist party. Last March, Bangladeshi investigators moved the government [11] to ban the Islamist party after evidence emerged indicating that JI formed armed groups to assist Pakistani forces in the commission of atrocities.
From Jurist [12], Feb. 18. Used with permission.
