Dhaka, Jul 15: Fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami's 91-year-old supremo Ghulam Azam was today sentenced to 90-year in jail by a special Bangladeshi tribunal for masterminding atrocities during the country's 1971 war of independence, the fifth and the most-awaited verdict on the war crimes cases.
“He (Azam) will serve 90 years in jail,” chairman of the three-member International Crimes Tribunal-1 A T M Fazle Kabir announced at the crowded courtroom here, amid tight security as Jamaat-e-Islami enforced a violent nationwide general strike to protest the sentencing of their spiritual leader.
Before the judgement was announced, police fired rubber bullets to disperse Azam's supporters protesting in the capital Dhaka and other cities.
The judgement, however, said Azam deserved the death penalty for the crimes he had committed in 1971 for siding with the Pakistani junta but his old age and physical condition forced the panel to deliver the 90 years of jail term.
Azam, who has left deep emotional scars in the collective national psyche by engineering war-time atrocities in 1971, was found guilty of all five categories of crime - conspiracy, planning, incitement, complicity and murder.
He had been charged with 61 counts of crimes in the five categories.
Azam, a provincial minister in 1971, was wheeled in to the court room for the verdict.
“Ghulam Azam's case is a unique one. Ghulam Azam was not physically present during these crimes but he has been accused of being the main man and the overseer of the war crimes during 1971,” Justice Kabir said, as the panel pronounced the operative part of an abridged 75-page judgement.
Azam, the then chief of the East Pakistan wing of Jamaat-e-Islami party, was present as the tribunal delivered the crucial verdict. He was “found guilty of all the charges” in course of the trial during the past one year.
During the reading out of the sentence, a second judge, Justice Anwarul Haque, gave the summary of arguments in the case that ended on April 17.
Justice Haque analysed whether or not crimes against humanity at all took place in the various parts of Bangladesh or not.
“The ‘massive genocide' in 1971 is the worst after the Second World War,” Haque was quoted by BD News as saying.
“It can only be compared to the genocide committed by Nazis,” he said. “And that genocide was committed by Pakistan and their collaborators in this country.”
Then Justice Hossain took over and started reading out the rest of 75-page summary verdict.
Azam, standing in the dock, quietly awaited judgement as all three judges made statements one after another. Azam, a provincial minister in 1971, was wheeled in to the court room for the verdict.
Azam was brought to the International Crimes Tribunal complex in an ambulance from the nearby specialised Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital where he has been kept under jail custody since his arrest last year.
The tribunal had earlier ordered jail authorities to take necessary steps to ensure Azam's appearance in the court today, rejecting his counsel's plea not to pronounce the verdict in his presence.
He made a feeble protest when the verdict was being read out.
Azam is the fifth Jamaat-e-Islami politician to be convicted by the International Crimes Tribunal since the trial of war crimes suspects, mostly belonging to the Islamist group, began three years ago.
In the first verdict of the tribunal in January, former Jamaat leader Abul Kalam Azad was sentenced to death on similar charges.
Another Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Mollah was sentenced to life in February for atrocities during the war.
In late February, Delwar Hossain Sayedee, vice-president of the party, was sentenced to death for committing “crimes against humanity” during the 1971 war.
On May 9, the tribunal handed down death penalty to fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami stalwart Muhammad Quamaruzzaman for “crimes against humanity” he committed during the war.
The verdict came as dozens of people, including reporters and policemen, were injured as Jamaat activists exploded scores of crude bombs and set nearly a dozen vehicles on fire ahead of the verdict, police said.
Family members including his elder son, a sacked army brigadier, were present as the three judges read out the verdict by rotation but it was not clear immediately if he would be taken back to the hospital or jail.
The defence lawyers visibly appeared happy with the judgment but a junior counsel for Azam with a smiling face told newsmen that they planned to challenge the verdict at the highest Appellate Division of the Supreme Court as “the prosecution could not prove their allegations”.
