A special tribunal in Dhaka has started reading out the summary of its verdict in war crimes cases against Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami for crimes against humanity that he allegedly committed during the Liberation War in 1971.
Justice Anwarul Haque, a panel member of the three-member judges' panel of the International Crimes Tribunal-1, according to the Daily Star, started reading the summary of the 204-page verdict at 11.10 a.m. today, over four months after deferment of the judgment.
Sevent-one-year-old Nizami was produced before the tribunal around 11 a.m., the daily reported.
If convicted, Nizami faces the death sentence by hanging. He has already been given the death penalty in the sensational 10-truck arms haul case in January this year.
Five top Jamaat leaders have already been punished for their 1971 crimes and Nizami is among three other top leaders now being tried in war crimes tribunals the Awami League-led government formed in 2010 to bring the perpetrators of 1971 to book.
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Security has been beefed up in and around the court premises to ward off violence centring the pronouncement of the verdict.
Nizami, who has been the chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami since 2000, is facing 16 war crimes charges, including his role in eliminating the Bangalee intelligentsia just before Bangladesh's victory on December 16 in the 1971 Liberation War.
After a 22-month trial proceedings, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 led by its Chairman Justice M Enayetur Rahim yesterday fixed today to pronounce the verdict.
The judgment is going to be delivered nearly a year after the completion of the trial proceedings, which went through different hurdles, including tribunal reconstitution, rehearing of closing arguments and deferment of the verdict.
Nizami was shifted from the Kashimpur jail to the Dhaka Central Jail around 8 p.m. yesterday.
There, jail doctors conducted a health check-up and found him sound, Farman Ali, senior jail super of Dhaka jail, told The Daily Star last night.
The tribunal could not deliver verdict on June 24 due to Nizami's sudden "illness" forcing the court to keep it waiting again.
