Sheikh Hasina ordered use of lethal weapons: Prosecution

Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordered the use of lethal weapons on students and the people during the July uprising. The Office of the Chief Prosecutor of the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) has found documentary evidence of her order.

Based on this evidence, the chief prosecutor’s office wants to submit an investigation report against Sheikh Hasina to the tribunal by next April.

Speaking about this, the tribunal’s prosecutor Gazi Monowar Hossain told Prothom Alo, “We have found her (Sheikh Hasina) direct involvement. We have found direct documentary evidence of her orders and instructions. We have also found documentary evidence of the order to use lethal weapons.”

Prosecutor Gazi Monowar Hossain further said it would be possible to submit charge sheets of four cases to the tribunal by April.

The case filed against Sheikh Hasina on charges of committing crimes against humanity during the mass uprising is also included among the four, he added.

The Awami League government was toppled on 5 August last year by the student-people uprising. Later, the International Crimes Tribunal was reconstituted on 14 October that year.

So far, the tribunal has filed 23 cases on charges of crimes against humanity. Sheikh Hasina has been accused in three of them. in one of these three cases, Sheikh Hasina has been accused of committing crimes against humanity, including genocide and torture, committed during the mass uprising.

She has been accused of enforced disappearances and killings during the 15-and-a-half-year rule of the previous Awami League government in another case.

And in the third case, charges have been brought against her of killing and torturing the leaders and activists of Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh at Shapla Chattar in the capital’s Motijheel area on 5 and 6 May 2013.

Sheikh Hasina fled to India in the face of the student-people movement on 5 August last year. Arrest warrants have been issued against her in all three cases filed against her at the ICT. Bangladesh has already sent a diplomatic note to India requesting her extradition. The government has also sent a request to the Interpol to issue an arrest warrant against Sheikh Hasina.

The tribunal is giving importance to killings took place during the mass uprising, enforced disappearances and killings during the 15-and-a-half year tenure of the previous Awami League government, and crimes against humanity like the torture and killings at Shapla Chattar in the capital’s Motijheel area in 2013.

Sheikh Hasina is accused in all three types of crimes.

Speaking to Prothom Alo, several officials of the tribunal’s investigation agency said while conducting investigations, they considered whether the crimes committed were crimes against humanity or not.

According to them any crime has to be committed at a larger scale and systematically to be categorised as crimes against humanity. There remains a “superior responsibility”, at whose order the crimes are committed at a larger scale and systematically. Or someone who either allowed, or did not try to stop, the crimes being committed at a larger scale and systematically.

Ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina is accused of “superior responsibility” in this case, the officials added.

The investigation agency officials also said the crimes started through the attacks of Bangladesh Chhatra League men on Dhaka University campus on 15 July. On 16 July, Begum Rokeya University student Abu Sayeed and another one in Chattogram were killed. Then the movement started across the country and crimes committed all over the country.

At one stage, the crimes became crimes against humanity. Accusations of “superior responsibility” have been brought against Sheikh Hasina in all the cases that are being filed on charges of crimes against humanity.

A crime cannot be categorised as crimes against humanity unless there is “superior responsibility”.

No investigation report has been submitted at the ICT in any case although seven months have gone by after the mass uprising. The responsibility of submitting investigation reports lies with the tribunal prosecution and the investigation agency.

The investigation agency will first submit the report to the office of the chief prosecutor, which will verify the report and submit those before the tribunal. Only then the formal trial begins.

Several sources from the prosecution said they want to submit four investigation reports, including one in the case against Sheikh Hasina on charges of crimes against humanity, to the tribunal by next April.

Former Inspector General of Police (IGP) Abdullah Al-Mamun is also an accused in the case. Sheikh Hasina was the sole accused in the case when it was filed in October last year.

The prosecution sources said the three other cases are Abu Sayeed murder case, killing of seven in the capital’s Chankharpool area and the incident of burning bodies in Ashulia, Dhaka.

The sources also said the tribunal so far issued arrest warrants against 142 people in 23 cases. Of them, 50 have been arrested.

Families of July uprising martyrs expressed their grievances and disappointments as several influential ministers, who are accused in the cases filed at the tribunal, of the ousted government fled the country.

Rabiul Awal is the general secretary of July 24 Martyred Family Society, a platform of the martyred family members, and brother of martyred Imam Hasan Taim.

He told Prothom Alo sufficient steps are not being seen to conduct the trial. If one accused is arrested for each killing, then the number of arrested should have been 2,000. How many people have been arrested so far? Who will be brought to book if the accused are not arrested?

* This report appeared in the print and online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Shameem Reza