A Bangladesh war crimes tribunal has sentenced opposition party MP Salauddin Quader Chowdhury to death for atrocities committed during the country’s 1971 war of independence with Pakistan.
Chowdhury was found guilty on nine out of 23 charges of rape, torture and genocide. He has been judged to have been responsible for killing some 200 civilians and collaborating with Pakistan’s army to kill and torture unarmed people, as well as other crimes. Security was beefed up in Dhaka and Chittangong, Chowdhury’s home town, as a precaution against protests over the verdict.
The tribunal’s decision on Chowdhury’s fate comes hot on the heels of Bangladesh’s Supreme Court deciding Islamist leader Abdul Quader Mollah, already given a life sentence for his role in the 1971 conflict, should now be hanged. Opposition parties have been criticising the war tribunal’s verdicts as a political vendetta. More than 100 people have been killed in protests against war crimes verdicts since the start of this year.
Emerging from the courtroom, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said: “The verdict is justified…He was given death penalty on four charges which were heinous genocides.” One of Chowdhury’s sons said the judgement would be challenged in the Supreme Court. He claimed the verdict was prepared by the law ministry instead of the tribunal as it was leaked on the internet.
Salauddin Quader Chowdhury is the son of former acting president and parliamentary speaker of Pakistan, Fazlul Quader Chowdhury, who died in prison soon after being sentenced for his role as a collaborator of the Pakistan army during the war of independence.
