Two Mymensingh suspects held
Police yesterday arrested two war crimes suspects in Mymensingh's Phulbaria upazila while a tribunal decided to hold trial of eight accused including six fugitives of Jamalpur.
In Phulbaria, Hazi Amjad Ali, 88, son of Fajar Ali Akanda of Palashihata (or Keshoreganj) village, and Riaz Uddin Fakir, 65, son of Nayeb Ali Fakir of Bhalukjan village, were detained around 2:00pm, said police.
The two were held hours after the International Crimes Tribunal-1 (ICT-1) issued arrest orders for three men of Mymensingh suspected to have committed crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971.
Officer-in-Charge of Phulbaria Police Station Rifat Khan Rajib said, "We are trying to arrest the other man."
Prosecutor Hrishikesh Saha said the prosecution sought their arrest for a proper and effective investigation.
Ataur Rahman, investigation officer of the case, told The Daily Star that he launched the probe in October 2014 and found the three's “involvement” in the killing of at least 50 people in 1971.
He said Amjad Ali was the advisor of the anti-liberation Razakar Bahini in Phulbaria while Riaz Uddin was an Al-Badr commander and the other suspect was a Razakar.
Amjad and Riaz were involved with the Jamaat-e-Islami but the other man was not engaged in politics.
Meanwhile, the ICT-2 yesterday decided to hold trial of six fugitives, accused of war crimes in Jamalpur, in absentia and of two other arrestees.
The tribunal took the decision as the fugitives did not surrender at the court even after newspaper advertisements asked them to do so.
The fugitives are Ashraf Hossain, 64, Prof Sharif Ahammed, 71, Abdul Mannan, 66, Abdul Bari, 62, Md Harun, 58, and Abul Hashem, 65.
The tribunal appointed two lawyers Abdus Sobhan Tarafder and Kutubuddin Ahmed as their counsels to defend them in the case.
The two arrestees now in jail are Shamsul Haque, 75, and AKM Yusuf Ali, 83.
All eight were allegedly involved with the anti-liberation Al-Badr and committed murder, abduction, torture in the district between April 22 and December 11, 1971, according to the charges.
The three-member tribunal headed by Justice Obaidul Hassan fixed September 15 to start hearing the charges before it indicts the accused.
Prosecutor Tapos Kanti Baul said advertisements were published in national dailies asking the six fugitives to appear at the tribunal by August 10.
As they did not, the prosecution sought the next order and the tribunal decided to hold the trial in absentia, he told The Daily Star.
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