And (do) not say for (the ones) who are slain in (the) way (of) Allah “(They are) dead Nay, (they are) alive [and] but you (do) not perceive.” Surah al Baqarah:154
Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, Secretary General of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and former Minister for Social Welfare was hanged to death on Sunday, 22 November at 5 minutes past 12 in the midnight. Mujahid was 67. His dead body was taken to Faridpur, his home town under tight security.
Bangladesh’s Supreme Court on 18 November dismissed his final legal appeals, upholding the leader’s death sentences originally handed down by a controversial war crimes tribunal in 2013.
Mujahid is the second most senior member of Bangladesh’s largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami.
The convictions triggered the country’s deadliest violence since independence, with some 500 people killed, mainly in clashes between public and police.
There are fears the executions could spark fresh unrest in the Muslim-majority nation, which is reeling from a string of killings of secular bloggers as well as the murders of two foreigners in recent months.
Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami called a nationwide strike on Thursday, declaring Mujahid’s original trial “farcical” and “aimed at eliminating” the party’s leadership.
New York-based Human Rights Watch had asked Bangladesh on 20 November to halt the “imminent executions” of Mujahid and Chowdhury, citing “serious fair trial concerns surrounding their convictions”.
Amnesty International said Mujahid and Chowdhury’s trials “failed to meet international standards.” The rights organisation said two weeks ago, “since they now face the death penalty, the ultimate miscarriage of justice may be only days away.”
A FLAWED JUSTICE
The trial court (International Crimes Tribunal) merged charge number one (the murder of journalist Shirajuddin Hossen) with charge number 6 (criminal offence in Mohammadpur Physical Training Institute) and awarded death sentence to Mujahid. The Appeals Court had acquitted him from charge number one and maintained the death penalty for making conspiracy to conduct intellectual’s killing. The lawyers of Mujahid filed a review petition in the Supreme Court on 14 October, 2015. In the 38-page petition the lawyers included 32 grounds. Some of those are as follows: In support of the intellectual’s killing allegations, the prosecution brought two witnesses. One is Rustom Ali Molla who was 14 in 1971 and the other is Jahir Uddin Jalal who was just 13 during the 1971 war. Molla claimed to be an eyewitness though there are severe discrepancies in his statement while Jalal appeared as a hearsay witness. Molla did not see Mujahid to plot a conspiracy or to design planning with the senior army officers. He claimed to see Mujahid at the gate of the Mohammadpur Physical Training Institute 3/4 months after the war began. He further admitted that he did not know Mujahid. The security guards who were working over there, were talking about the arrival of Ghulam Azam, Nizami and Mujahid at the Mohammadpur Physical Training Institute and then he came to know Mujahid. It becomes crystal clear from Rustom’s testimony that he knew none of these aforesaid three persons. Nobody introduced him with Mujahid. Then naturally the question is, without any prior knowledge about the face or the identity of Mujahid, how did Rustom recognise him? However, even if it is taken as an assumable truth, does it prove that Mujahid plotted conspiracy or designed a plan for these killings with the army officer?
Jalal stated in his testimony that Rustom Ali Molla informed him about the frequent movement of Nizami and Mujahid at the Mohammadpur Physical Training Institute. But the investigation officer clearly rejected such a claim and said Rustom had never told him that he knew Jalal before. So the claim of Jalal in this regard is being proved false. Raham Ali Molla, the father of Rustom Ali Molla was the security guard of Mohammadpur Physical Training Institute in those days of war. Investigation officer admitted in the cross examination that Raham Ali Molla was alive but the prosecution did not produce him as witness. The then Principal of the Physical Training Institute Mohibbullah Khan Majlish and his son and current principal Tareq Iqbal Khan Majlish (who was a student of class 8 in 1971) were not produced as witnesses as well. Moreover, the investigation officer did not talk to anyone who had been working in the Mohammadpur Physical Training Institute in 1971 or any staff members who had resided inside the institute or even the IO did not produce any of them as witness.
Ignoring and defying the availability of the senior and credible persons of those incidents, the prosecution brought an immature man of that time and based on his false and contradictory statements, the death penalty of Mr. Mujahid was maintained. It has been alleged that Mujahid had hatched a conspiracy with the army officials for committing intellectual’s killing. But the prosecution failed to reveal how, when and with whom he had made this conspiracy. Even, the prosecution utterly failed to produce any evidence to prove who had been murdered as a result of this alleged conspiracy.
There is no news mentioning the name of Mujahid. If he really was the commander of AL Badar then immediate after independence, why did the people fail to blame him for any offence?
In connection with the intellectual’s murder, 42 cases had been filed under the Collaborator Act in 1972. The prosecution did not submit the documents of those cases during the trial of the instant case. But it is truly questionable that after 42 years, the liabilities of all those murders are being imposed upon a single man, Mujahid.
A 7-member investigation committee led by renowned film maker Zahir Raihan had been formed on 29 December, 1971 for probing the intellectual’s murder. Veteran lawyer Barrister Amirul Islam and Barrister Maudud Ahmed were also included as members of this committee. The prosecution in the case against Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid did not submit the findings of that investigation committee or not even discussed the matter with any of the committee members. Why the prosecution did not disclose the report of this probe committee before the nation?
The Appellate Division did not award death sentence to Mujahid for any specific murder or offence. Simply based on assumption, they have made Mujahid liable of plotting the conspiracies of the intellectual’s murder as a whole. There is no precedence in the 400 years long history of judiciary that a man is being sentenced with death penalty for his role as a conspirator even after his physical involvement is not confirmed. Actually, this is not a trial. This is simply a game of the current government with the public sentiment about the war of liberation. This is a strategy of repression which has been adopted by the ruling authority to destroy the possible rising opposition forces.
A POLITICISED TRIBUNAL
Though the government and ICT have stated that justice was the priority, opposition parties Bangladesh Jamaat‐e‐Islami and the BNP accused the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of using the tribunal to persecute them. In December 2012, conversations and emails between the judge and a Brussels‐based lawyer were published, which, according to The Economist, revealed that the government wanted a quick verdict from the International Crimes Tribunal. Following the revelations, the controversial Chief Justice Nizamul Huq resigned from the post and Fazle Kabir was appointed there. It was absolutely clear, from the very beginning, that these courts are merely kangaroo courts, where standards of law and justice are blatantly disregarded and the verdicts have already been decided before the trials have begun.
Several key incidents made this obvious: As revealed in SkypeGate, the judges of this mockery of justice were directed by Ziauddin Ahmed, a member of a notorious anti-Jamaat group. He was not an official of the court and yet, like a Czar, he controlled every aspect of the tribunal. On many occasions, he has written orders that were allegedly handed down by the court verbatim. He has also designed a guideline for the judges and a basic structure for all the verdicts to come way before the trials completed.
A number of the Tribunal members participated in the so-called Gana Adalat Commission (or People’s Court) that prejudged these cases in the early 1990s. Indeed, the former Chairman of the Tribunal is listed as a member of the Secretariat of the Commission. There was clear evidence of collusion between the Tribunal, the prosecution, and members of an anti‐Jamaat organisation during the trial process. The prosecutor and judges would meet regularly in secret and decide how they would act in unison against the defence. Former Chairman of the ICT‐1, Justice Nizamul Huq, admitted that a state minister, Quamrul Islam, pressured him for quick verdicts and a judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, Justice SK Sinha, offered him promotion in return. On several occasions, the judges declared that they have a particular view of the events of 1971 and they would never change that view irrespective of whatever evidence or witness testimony are presented before them.
WHO IS MUJAHID?
Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid is the Secretary General of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and former Social Welfare Minister of the Government of People’s Republic of Bangladesh. He has gained huge reputation for his transparency, honesty and corruption-free life. He also played an outstanding role for the establishment of democracy, rule of law and human rights in Bangladesh. The nation admired him for his sincere role in all the democratic and anti-autocratic movements.
He has played a pivotal role in all the previous movements against the autocracy to restore democracy in the country. But simply out of political vendetta, the present government brought some false and concocted charges against him as they failed to tackle him politically.
The incumbent government in Bangladesh is extremely envious of his popularity. They are also in fear of witnessing the growing acceptance of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami. To resist this expanding force, they initiated a tribunal just immediate after coming to power in order to prosecute the opposition Islamist forces. As the government did not find any misdeeds or corruption in the previous record of these leaders, they initiated the trial implicating them with some offences which had been committed 44 years ago, during the war of independence in 1971. In the name of trying the war criminals, the government started a new conspiracy against the opposition leaders, particularly against the leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami including Mr. Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid.
Mujahid was sentenced to death in 2013 in line with the allegation of committing crimes against humanity during the liberation war of 1971, charges which had never been heard in last 44 years.
Mr Mujahid was a student leader in 1971 and among those who supported a unified Pakistan. He later became Minister for Social Welfare in the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led government from 2001-2006.
He was highly regarded for his oratory and organisational skills.