![]() |
Delwar Hossain Sayeedi | |
---|---|
দেলাওয়ার হোসাইন সাঈদী | |
![]() Delwar Hossain Sayeedi | |
Member of Parliament | |
In office 14 July 1996 –27 October 2006 | |
Preceded by | Gazi Nuruzzaman Babul |
Succeeded by | A. K. M. A. Awal Saydur Rahman |
Constituency | Pirojpur-1 |
Nayeb-e-Ameer of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami | |
In office 2009 –14 August 2023 | |
Ameer | |
Personal details | |
Born | Pirojpur District, Bengal Presidency, British India | 2 February 1940
Died | 14 August 2023 83) Dhaka, Bangladesh | (aged
Nationality | Bangladeshi |
Political party | Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami |
Occupation | |
Delwar Hossain Sayeedi (2 February 1940 – 14 August 2023) was a Bangladeshi Islamic leader, [1] [2] politician, public speaker, and convicted war criminal, [3] who served as a Member of Parliament representing the Pirojpur-1 constituency from 1996 to 2006. [4] [5]
In 2013, the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in Bangladesh found him guilty on eight out of twenty counts, which included murder, rape, and religious persecution. The verdict, which condemned him to death, generated significant domestic and international attention, leading to both support and criticism. [6] [7] [8] The verdict subsequently led to public protests and clashes between his supporters, opponents, and law enforcement agencies, resulting in a series of riots and unrest. [9]
In September 2014, the Supreme Court commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. [10] [11] [12] His trial was criticized by several international organizations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
Sayeedi died on 14 August 2023 at the age of 83 due to a cardiac arrest. [13]
Sayeedi received his first primary religious education at his local village madrassa, which was built by his father. [14] Sayeedi attended the Sarsina Alia Madrasah in 1962, followed by the Khulna Alia Madrasah. [14]
He was accused of, and later convicted of, committing arson, sexual violence and murder during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. [6] [15]
Critics point out that no DNA testing was conducted and some locals denied that he was involved. [15] His family claims that he was not in Pirojpur at the time and lived in the New Market area of Jessore. [16] [14] Sayeedi and his family, then fled Jessore looking for safety and stayed at the house of a pir for about two weeks from around 1 April 1971. After that, the Sayeedi family took refuge in another village, Mohiron, under Bagharpara in Jessore at the house of Roushan Ali. [16]
He joined Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami in 1979. He became a Rukon of Jamaat in 1982 and a Shura member of Majlis in 1989. In 1996, he became a member of the executive council of Jamaat. He served as Naib Amir of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami from 2009 till his death. [17]
Having gained recognition, Delwar Hossain Sayeedi was elected as a member of parliament for constituency Pirojpur-1 in the 1996 and 2001 national elections of Bangladesh. [18]
On 22 March 2012, the Bangladesh government established the International Crimes Tribunal (Bangladesh) to hear cases resulting from investigations of war crimes during the struggle for independence. It was an effort to "provide justice for victims of atrocities in the 1971 war of independence." [19] In the lead up to the hearing, Sayeedi's eldest son and mother died and he suffered a heart attack. This delayed his trial by a month in 2012. [20]
Sayeedi was accused of involvement in numerous crimes, including the killing of over 50 individuals, arson, rape, looting, and coercion of Hindus to convert to Islam. [21]
On 24 July 2009, immigration officials at Zia International Airport prevented Sayeedi from going abroad. He challenged the government's actions by filing a petition with the High Court on 27 July. The appeals court upheld the travel bar 12 August, hours after the High Court declared the government's refusal to allow him to board an overseas flight illegal. [22] [23] The Attorney General stated before the Chamber Judge that Sayeedi had opposed the independence of Bangladesh in 1971. He argued that if Sayeedi was not barred from foreign travel, he might work against the government's efforts to bring justice for war crimes during that conflict.[ citation needed ]
On 21 March 2010, Syed Rejaul Haque Chandpuri, secretary general of the Bangladesh Tarikat Federation, filed a case accusing Delwar Hossain Sayeedi and five other Jamaat leaders of hurting religious sentiments. He was subsequently arrested. [24] [ better source needed ]
On 12 August 2009, Manik Poshari filed a war crime case in Pirojpur against Delwar Hossain Sayeedi and four others. [25] His accusations dated to events during the 1971 Bangladeshi war of independence.
Mahbubul Alam Howladar, a former freedom fighter, and now a member and deputy commander of the freedom fighters association called Zianagor upazila Muktijoddha Sangsad, filed charges against Sayeedi with the Pirojpur senior judicial magistrate's court in Zianagar. [26]
The war crime trials of Sayeedi began on 20 November 2011 at the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh. The tribunal charged him with twenty counts of crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and arson, during the liberation war. [27] Some of the charges were (a) passing secret information on the gathering of people behind the Madhya Masimpur bus-stand to the Pakistan Army, and leading the Army there, where 20 unnamed people were killed by shooting; (b) abducting and killing of government officials (deputy magistrate – Saif Mizanur Rahman, sub-divisional police officer – Foyezur Rahman Ahmed, and sub-divisional officer – Abdur Razzak) of Pirojpur; (c) identifying and looting the houses and shops of people belonging to the Awami League, Hindu community, and supporters of the Liberation War at Parerhat Bazar under Pirojpur Sadar; (d) leading an operation, accompanied by Pakistan Army, to burn 25 houses of the Hindu community at Umedpur village (under the jurisdiction of Indurkani Police Station); (e) leading the group who abducted three women from the house of Gouranga Saha of Parerhat Bandar and handing them over to the Pakistan army for raping. [28] [29] [30] [31]
Sultan Ahmed Howlader, the fourth prosecution witness in the trial, testified that, during the liberation war, Sayeedi and his associate Moshleuddin confined Bipod Shaha's daughter Vanu Shaha at Parerhat, Pirojpur district and regularly raped her. [28] [31] Another witness testified that Sayeedi had organised the Razakar militia, a paramilitary force that aided the Pakistan army at Pirojpur. [32]
The trial saw 28 witnesses for the prosecution and 16 for the defence. In addition, the tribunal received 16 witness statements given to the investigator after the prosecution argued that those witnesses were either dead, or that producing them before the tribunal would incur unreasonable delay or expenditure. [33]
On 5 November 2012, Sukhranjan Bali, a prosecution witness who instead testified as a defense witness was abducted outside the International Crimes Tribunal allegedly by the Bangladesh Police. [34] Human rights group believed it to be a case of forced disappearance. Later, Bali was handed over to India's Border Security Force. [34] [35] "The apparent abduction of a witness in a trial at the ICT is a cause for serious concern about the conduct of the prosecution, judges and government," said a spokesperson for Human Rights Watch. [35] Bali had been expected to counter prosecution allegations about Sayeedi's involvement in the 1971 murder of Bali's brother. [36]
The tribunal found Sayeedi guilty in 8 of the 20 charges, including mass killing, rape, arson, looting and force minority Hindus to convert to Islam during 1971. On 28 February 2013, the tribunal sentenced him to death by hanging for two charges among the eight committed during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971. [7] [9] [37]
As per the verdict, Sayeedi was awarded capital punishment for the offenses as listed in charge numbers 8 and 10. The court refrained from passing any separate sentence of imprisonment for the offences listed in charge numbers 6, 7, 11, 14, 16 and 19 which it said had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. At the same time, the accused was found not guilty to the offenses of crimes against humanity as listed in charge numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 20 and was acquitted from the said charges. [38] [39]
The defendant's lawyers boycotted the trial and have said that the charges against Sayeedi and others were politically motivated. [37] [40]
Various groups including BNP and Jamaat questioned the legitimacy of the tribunal and conviction. [41] [42]
His defence at the trial argued that this was a case of mistaken identity saying that the original perpetrator was a man named Delwar Hossain Shikdar, [15] who had been apprehended and executed by freedom fighters after the war. [33] [16]
By afternoon on the day of the primary verdict, clashes had erupted across Bangladesh between Islamic activists and police forces. An estimated 100 protesters died countrywide in a series of protests and crackdowns subsequently. [43] [44] [45] [46] According to the BBC, it marked "The worst day of political violence in Bangladesh in decades". [47]
The Amnesty International released a statement on Sayeedi's trial. They noted that the organization neither endorsed the appeals for capital punishment in the case of Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, nor could it affirm that the trials aligned with global benchmarks for impartial legal proceedings. [48] On 2 November 2011, Human Rights Watch released a statement urging the Bangladeshi government to address and investigate instances of intimidation and threats against defense lawyers and witnesses involved in cases at the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT). Furthermore, Human Rights Watch said the proceedings of the trial fell short of international standards and urged a retrial. [49]
The Economist criticised the trial, stating that the presiding judge had resigned and Sayeedi's death sentence was handed down by three men who had not heard all the witnesses. [50]
On 17 September 2014, the Appellate Division of the Bangladesh Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain and comprising a five-member bench, delivered a verdict reducing Sayeedi's sentence from the death penalty to life imprisonment for war crimes. The judgment reflected varying opinions among the judges. [51] [52]
In 2004, the United States of America Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) added Sayeedi to its No Fly List, established to prevent suspected radicals and terrorists from flying into the US. [53] In July 2006, Sayeedi travelled to the UK to address rallies in London and Luton; his entry was cleared by the foreign office. Many British MPs considered his admission to the country to be controversial. In leaked emails reported by The Times, an adviser, Eric Taylor, said that Sayeedi's "previous visits to the UK have been reportedly marred by violence caused by his supporters." [54]
On 13 July 2006, the British journalist Martin Bright released a documentary called Who Speaks For Muslims? It included Sayeedi and identified him as having extreme views. [55] Sayeedi has a large following within the British Bangladeshi community. He was invited to speak at the East London Mosque on 14 July 2006; the then-secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Muhammad Abdul Bari, supported his invitation. [54]
On 14 August 2023 at 8:40 PM, Sayeedi, aged 83, died at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University after experiencing a cardiac arrest. Following his death, thousands of mourners and supporters assembled outside the hospital premises in a rally. [56]
Ghulam Azam was a Bangladeshi politician. He served as the Ameer of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami.
The Bangladesh genocide was the ethnic cleansing of Bengalis, especially Bengali Hindus, residing in East Pakistan during the Bangladesh Liberation War, perpetrated by the Pakistan Army and the Razakars. It began on 25 March 1971, as Operation Searchlight was launched by West Pakistan to militarily subdue the Bengali population of East Pakistan; the Bengalis comprised the demographic majority and had been calling for independence from the Pakistani state. Seeking to curtail the Bengali self-determination movement, erstwhile Pakistani president Yahya Khan approved a large-scale military deployment, and in the nine-month-long conflict that ensued, Pakistani soldiers and local pro-Pakistan militias killed between 300,000 and 3,000,000 Bengalis and raped between 200,000 and 400,000 Bengali women in a systematic campaign of mass murder and genocidal sexual violence. In their investigation of the genocide, the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists concluded that Pakistan's campaign involved the attempt to exterminate or forcibly remove a significant portion of the country's Hindu populace. West Pakistanis in particular were shown by the news that the operation was carried out because of the 'rebellion by the East Pakistanis' and many activities at the time were hidden from them, including rape and ethnic cleansing of East Pakistanis by the Pakistani military.
Motiur Rahman Nizami was a politician, former Minister of Bangladesh, Islamic scholar, writer and a former Ameer of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami. He is noted for leading Al-Badr during the Bangladesh Liberation War. On 29 October 2014, he was convicted of masterminding the Demra massacre by the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh. Nizami was the Member of Parliament for the Pabna-1 constituency from 1991 to 1996 and again from 2001 to 2006. He also served as the Bangladeshi Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Industry.
The Razakar was an East Pakistani paramilitary force organised by General Tikka Khan in East Pakistan.
Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed was a Bangladeshi politician who served as a Member of Parliament and as the Minister of Social Welfare from 2001 to 2007. He was executed in 2015 for war crimes committed during the 1971 Liberation war of Bangladesh.
Muhammad Kamaruzzaman was a Bangladeshi politician and journalist who served as the senior assistant secretary general of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and was convicted of war crimes during the 1971 independence war of Bangladesh. He was executed by hanging at Dhaka Central Jail at 22:01 on 11 April 2015.
Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, previously known as Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, is a Bangladeshi Islamist political party; it is the largest Islamist political party in Bangladesh.
Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, is a British citizen convicted of war crimes committed during the Bangladesh War of Independence which involved the killing of intellectuals in collaboration with the Pakistan Army. After the liberation of Bangladesh, Chowdhury escaped from Bangladesh and attained British citizenship. Bangladesh has yet to file a request with the UK government to bring back Mueen, and the two countries do not have any extradition treaty signed between them.
The International Crimes Tribunal (Bangladesh) (ICT of Bangladesh) is a domestic war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh set up in 2009 to investigate and prosecute suspects for the genocide committed in 1971 by the Pakistan Army and their local collaborators Razakars, Al-Badr and Al-Shams during the Bangladesh Liberation War. During the 2008 general election, the Awami League (AL) pledged to try war criminals. The government set up the tribunal after the Awami League won the general election in December 2008 with a more than two-thirds majority in parliament.
The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) is an ongoing tribunal in Bangladesh that aims to investigate and administer justice regarding the war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and crimes against peace committed by Pakistan army and their local collaborators Razakar, Al-Badr, Al-Shams during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. In 2008's public election, one of the principal electoral manifestos of the Awami League was to initiate the trial process of war criminals. As promised, a member of parliament from Awami League submitted the proposal of the trial of war criminals on 29 January 2009 in National Parliament and the proposal was accepted unanimously. Finally after 39 years of Liberation of Bangladesh, on 25 March, the tribunal, attorney panel and investigation organization was formed for the trial of the ones accused of war crimes.
Steven Walton Kay, KC is a British international criminal lawyer.
Abdur Razzaq is a Bangladeshi barrister and former Assistant Secretary General of political party Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami. He was the chief defence counsel at Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal until the end of 2013, when he left Dhaka for London. There he practices at the English Bar.
Abdul Quader Mollah was a Bangladeshi Islamist leader, writer, and politician of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, who was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to death by the International Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh (ICT) set up by the government of Bangladesh and hanged. The United Nations raised objections to the trial's fairness, while the general public in Bangladesh widely supported the execution.
On 5 February 2013, protests ignited in Shahbagh, Bangladesh, fueled by the call for the execution of the convicted war criminal Abdul Quader Mollah. Previously sentenced to life imprisonment, Mollah was convicted on five of six counts of war crimes by the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh. Mollah supported the West Pakistan during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and played a crucial role in the murder of numerous Bengali nationalists and intellectuals. The demonstrations also sought the government's ban on the radical right-wing and conservative-Islamist group, Jamaat-e-Islami from participating in politics, including elections, and a boycott of institutions supporting or affiliated with the group.
On 28 February 2013, the International Crimes Tribunal sentenced Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, the vice-president of the Jamaat-e-Islami to death for war crimes committed during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. Following the sentence, activists of Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir attacked Hindus in different parts of the country. Hindu properties were looted, Hindu houses were burnt into ashes and Hindu temples were desecrated and set on fire. While the government has held the Jamaat-e-Islami responsible for the attacks on minorities, the Jamaat-e-Islami leadership has denied any involvement. Minority leaders have protested the attacks and appealed for justice. The Supreme Court of Bangladesh has directed law enforcement to start suo motu investigation into the attacks. The US Ambassador to Bangladesh expressed concern about attacks by Jamaat on the Bengali Hindu community.
2013 Bangladesh violence refers to the political instability, increase in crime and widespread attacks of minorities and opposition activists.
2013 (MMXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2013th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 13th year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 4th year of the 2010s decade.
The movement demanding trial of war criminals is a protest movement in Bangladesh, from 1972 to present demanding trial of the perpetrators of 1971 Bangladesh genocide during the Bangladesh Liberation War from Pakistan.
Mir Quasem Ali was a Bangladeshi philanthropist and a politician of the Jamaat-e-Islami party. He was a former director of Islami Bank and chairman of the Diganta Media Corporation, which owns Diganta TV. He founded the Ibn Sina Trust and was a key figure in the establishment of the NGO Rabita al-Alam al-Islami. He was sentenced to death on 2 November 2014 for crimes against humanity committed during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971 by International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh.