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Mujib’s killers face justice after 34 yrs
Bangladesh SC Sentences 5 Army Men To Death
Dhaka: The Bangladesh Supreme Court on Thursday rejected an appeal by five former army officers convicted of killing the nation’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in a coup more than 34 years ago.
Security was tight in Dhaka with more than 12,000 extra police deployed ahead of the ruling, which paves the way for the execution of the killers, some 13 years after they first came to trial.
Around 1,000 people squeezed inside the packed courtroom, while 10,000 more gathered outside, many breaking down in tears upon hearing the final verdict in a case that has haunted the South Asian nation for decades.
“The Supreme Court has accepted our argument that the five men are guilty and dismissed their appeals. They are going to go to the gallows,” said chief state prosecutor Syed Anisul Haque.
Deputy law minister Kamrul Islam said that the executions would probably be carried out in “late December or early January”.
Sheikh Mujib, as Rahman is known, led the country to independence in 1971 after a bl**dy, nine-month war against Pakistan. He was gunned down at his home, along with his wife and three sons, in a coup on August 15, 1975. His daughters, the current PM Sheikh Hasina and her sister Sheikh Rehana, were abroad at the time.
“The premier cried after hearing the verdict. She was overwhelmed with emotion,” said government spokesman Syed Ashraful Islam.
A total of 20 people, including domestic staff, were killed when army officers stormed Sheikh Mujib’s house.
One of the state lawyers in the case, Fazle Noor Tapash, who lost both his parents in the killings, said: “Finally the souls of the father of the nation and those who were murdered will be able to rest in peace.”
The case was first heard in 1996 when Hasina became premier for the first time and removed a legal barrier enacted by the post-Mujib government to protect the killers. At that time, 15 men were found guilty and sentenced to death.
Three were acquitted in 2001. Of the remaining 12, five appealed the verdict to the SC, six are in hiding and one is believed to have died in Zimbabwe.
The appeal argued that Sheikh Mujib’s death was part of a mutiny and the defendants should therefore have been tried in a military rather than a civilian court.
The apex court hearing finally began last month after the politically sensitive case had spent eight years in limbo.
Hasina lost power in 2001 to her bitter rival Khaleda Zia, under whose government the courts failed to process the appeal. Proceedings were only reactivated after Hasina regained power early this year. AFP
WHEELS OF JUSTICE
March 1971 | Sheikh Mujibur announces breakaway from East Pakistan and the establishment of Bangladesh August 1975 | Sheikh Mujibur is killed in a coup November 1998 | Dhaka court orders execution of 15 for his killing. Three later acquitted Oct 2001 | Trial halts after Khaleda Zia is elected PM August 2007 | Sheikh Mujibur’s murder case resumes