Dhaka — The U.S. ambassador in Bangladesh said Wednesday he was concerned about a contempt petition prosecutors were seeking against Human Rights Watch over a Bangladesh war crimes case.
Ambassador Dan Mozena said that a human rights organization like it has “a critical role to play.”
The prosecutors sought permission Tuesday from a special tribunal to file a contempt notice against the New York-based rights organization because of a statement in which HRW said the trial of former Jamaat-e-Islami party chief Ghulam Azam was “deeply flawed” and did not meet international standards.
The statement the group issued Friday alleged the “judges had improperly conducted an investigation on behalf of the prosecution” and mentioned “collusion and bias among prosecutors and judges.”
Azam was convicted of crimes against humanity and genocide and sentenced to 90 years in jail for his actions during the nation’s independence war against Pakistan. Bangladesh says Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed 3 million people and raped 200,000 women in the 1971 war.
Both the defense and prosecution have appealed the verdict. The maximum punishment Azam could have faced was the death penalty.
The prosecutors’ petition accuses HRW’s board of directors, its director for the Asia region, Brad Adams, and his associate Storm Tiv. Adams and the group’s representative in India did not immediately answer messages seeking comment Wednesday.
A person found responsible for contempt could face one year in jail and be ordered to pay 5,000 takas ($63).
The prosecution’s filing said HRW raised “biased, baseless, utterly false, fabricated and ill-motivated” allegations involving the trial process. It also called the statement most unethical as the appeals from both sides are pending with the Supreme Court.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government is holding war crimes trials over the independence war under protest from the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its key ally Jamaat-e-Islami party. Jamaat-e-Islami is accused of organizing forces against the fighters who sought independence. – My SA via Google News
UNB Adds: The International Crimes Tribunal-1 will hear on Thursday the prosecution plea seeking to issue a contempt notice upon New York-based global rights body Human Rights Watch (HRW) for publishing a ‘contemptuous’ report over its judgment on former Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Ghulam Azam. “We’ve perused the matter submitted by the prosecution and we’ll hear it tomorrow (Thursday),” said Justice ATM Fazle Kabir, chairman of the three-member tribunal that deals with the cases of crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.
fter a month of pronouncement of the judgment sentencing Ghulam Azam to 90 years’ imprisonment finding him guilty of all five charges of the 1971 crimes against humanity and genocide against him, the HRW on August 16 published a report on its website headlined ‘Bangladesh: Azam conviction based on flawed proceedings: Analysis outlines how fair trial rights of accused seriously compromised’.
The HRW report claimed that the trial of the former Jamaat-e-Islami chief was deeply flawed and it had not met the international standards. The impugned HRW report prompted the war crimes chief prosecutor to file the contempt plea before the ICT-1.
The petitioner urged the tribunal to issue a contempt notice asking the HRW, represented by its board of directors, and its Executive Director, Asia Division, Brad Adams, and Associate, Asia Division, Storm Tiv, to explain why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against them.
