B'desh tribunal to deliver verdict against Jamaat chief

A special Bangladeshi tribunal will tomorrow deliver its verdict against fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami, accused of war crimes during the country's liberation war against Pakistan in 1971.
Nizami, 69, is charged with 16 counts of war crimes including murder, rape, looting, abatement and the massacre of Bengali intellectuals during the liberation war and could face the death penalty.
"The tribunal fixed the date for the verdict tomorrow," an official of the Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal told reporters.
The tribunal on June 24 deferred the verdict after the jail authorities suddenly reported that the accused was unable to appear in the court as his blood pressure shot up.

Ten days later, the prison authorities reported that Nizami was fit for court appearance.
But no fresh date was issued by the tribunal in the past several months, fuelling speculation about the fate of the trial.

The judgement is expected to end a major phase of the trial of crimes against humanity. Nizami is the last high-profile accused to be tried in the case.
The charges against Nizami include the murder of 70 people and torching of 72 houses in December, 1971, in Pabna's Bera Upazila, murdering 450 people in Demra and Baushia villages and killing many more in front of a Hindu temple in Santhiya Upazila.

About three million people were killed by the Pakistani army and their Bengali-speaking collaborators during the liberation war, according to official estimates. Nizami, the then head of the East-Pakistan unit of Jamaat's student affiliate -- Islami Chhatra Shangha -- is one of the last high-profile accused in the case. Almost the entire leadership of Jamaat-e-Islami stands accused of war crimes.
Eight people have been so far handed down death sentences and two others were sentenced to life term since the trial of war crimes began in 2011 by two tribunals set up by the Awami League government.
Of the 10 convicted in the cases, eight are Jamaat stalwarts and the other two are leaders of its crucial ally, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia.

Nizami was a minister in the BNP-led four-party alliance government from 2001-2006.
A special tribunal has already sentenced Nizami and 13 others, including a top leader of India's separatist outfit ULFA, to death in the 2004 Chittagong arms cases. The tribunal found him guilty of complicity in trying to smuggle in a huge quantity of weapons through the port city while he was Industry Minister in the BNP-led government of Khaleda Zia.