It was an unheard of feat in the history of judiciary in Bangladesh that a prisoner was sentenced to death in an appeal to the highest court and then stripped of his right to appeal the very same sentence. Defying logic and all manner of common sense, the Supreme Court on 18 September sentenced Abdul Quader Molla, a senior member of the biggest Islamic party in the country, the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, to death for allegedly committing crimes against humanity during the nation’s 1971 independence war against Pakistan.
It is worth mentioning here that the veteran politician was earlier sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity by the Bangladeshi International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) on 5 February 2013. Following due course of law, both the defence and prosecution challenged the sentence to the Supreme Court. The appellate division dismissed the appeal made by Molla’s lawyers against his conviction on five counts of crimes against humanity while positively focusing the prosecution appeal for a death penalty. The appellate division, in an unusual move, ramped up his punishment and changed it from life imprisonment to a death penalty.
The reactions to the appeal verdict have been mixed, but they showcase a widening rift in the country between supporters of the incumbent Awami League government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and those of the opposition led by ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. This comes at a time when both camps gear up for facing each other over the issue of national elections which the present government says will be held by the beginning of next year.
It is worth mentioning that the issue of elections has been a subject of controversy since the present government abolished the caretaker system through a comfortable majority in the Parliament back in June 2011. Since then, the opposition has regularly taken to the streets in a bid to put forward their demands for the reinstatement of the caretaker system, arguing against the neutrality of any polls that may be held under a partisan government. Many in the opposition see the war crimes trials as being a tool used to divert the public attention from the above issue. Coupled with the glaring flaws on the trial of Abdul Quader Molla and the other accused at the ICT trials, and the fact that the almost all defendants are members of the opposition parties Jamaat and BNP, the conviction that the trials are politically motivated is only bound to get stronger.
BACKDROP OF CONTROVERSIES
Controversy at the International Crimes Tribunal, a domestic court set up to try the war criminals of 1971 started as early back in mid-December last year, when the disgraced Chairman of the tribunal resigned in lieu of his connection with the “Skypegate” scandal that was exposed by the Economist in detail in “The trial of a Birth of a Nation”. The defence was prevented from calling more than 6 witnesses and the case was promptly rushed towards judgment in February this year.
The verdict of life imprisonment for Abdul Quader Molla resulted in an uproar of public sentiment, a result of a barrage of the emotional hype that had been fuelled by the government and media since the incumbent government had come to power. Emotion prevailed over reason, as thousands came out onto the streets of Dhaka, particularly at Shahbag, enraged at what they perceived to be a compromise on rightful justice, oblivious to the merit or lack thereof of a trial that was more than 40 years behind schedule.
The law as it stood at the time of conviction did not permit any prosecution appeal for a higher sentence. In an unprecedented move, the ruling party made the move to amend the associated law to allow the prosecution to appeal. The amendment was passed following Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s remarkable statement in parliament, as a result of mass demonstrations on the streets of Dhaka that the tribunal judges should listen to ‘the sentiment of the people.’
THE FINAL JUDGEMENT
As experts noted, the appellate division focused on building on previous convictions, as the court upheld unanimously that his acquittal on charge no. 4 should be reversed and should stand as a conviction, and most significantly that, by a majority, the sentence on charge no. 6 (the murder of a family), should be changed from life imprisonment to a death penalty.
The case as it stood before the appellate division was an extremely weak one. Three of the five charges against Mr. Molla relied totally on hearsay evidence. The charge for which Mr. Molla was sentenced by the appellate division to hang was based on the testimony of a single witness, who was a 13-year-old at the time, and against whose testimony there was no corroborating evidence whatsoever. At the end of the day, it stood out that those who had labelled Abdul Quader Molla the ‘Butcher of Mirpur’ all these years simply had a lone hearsay account to prove it.
FINAL NAIL IN COFFIN OF JUSTICE
Abbas Faiz, Amnesty International’s Bangladesh Researcher was expressing his concern when he said, “This is the first known case of a prisoner sentenced to death directly by the highest court in Bangladesh. It is also the first known death sentence in Bangladesh with no right of appeal.”
The concerns of Amnesty are genuine. The imposition of the death sentence without the possibility of appeal is incompatible with Bangladesh’s obligations under international human rights law. Not only does such a sentence defy human rights laws, but it also needs to be taken into cognizance that one human rights violation does not cancel out another.
The grounds for conviction of such nature were weak from the very moment clear evidence emerged of the government meddling in the matters of the tribunal back in 2012. In retrospect, few can turn back and say they witnessed a fair trial. Few can say that they witnessed something more than a show of political vendetta.
[Mohammad Hossain is a Bangladesh based blogger and commentator on social and political affairs of Bangladesh.]