The Bangladesh Parliament has moved to impound all movable and immovable assets of the assassins of the nation’s founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and those convicted for war crimes in 1971.
A resolution in this regard was passed unanimously on Thursday and was welcomed by nation’s liberation war veterans and the war crimes trial campaigners.
Welcoming the resolution, Law Minister Anisul Huq said properties of the executed war criminals would be confiscated after enacting a new law.
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The minister also told Parliament that the government would also seize assets of the absconding killers of Mujibur Rahman.
Mujibur Rahman was killed three-and-a-half years after the country’s independence from Pakistan, along with most of his family members on August 15, 1975, by a group of rogue army officers.
Their trial was stopped through an Indemnity Ordinance that saved the self-proclaimed killers. The ordinance was abrogated in November 1996 when the Awami League returned to power.
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Following the verdict in the case, five of the 12 killers were hanged on January 27, 2010. Six others are still absconding abroad. One died while hiding in Zimbabwe.
Bangladesh Parliament had passed a similar resolution for the trial of the alleged war criminals in 2010. Following the resolution, the government set up The International Crimes Tribunal on March 25, 2010 under a domestic law of 1973.
The two war crimes tribunals have so far convicted 50 people, almost half of them are absconding.
Five top leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami and one of BNP have so far been hanged for the crimes against humanity they committed during the Liberation War. Some others, including Jamaat’s Delwar Hossain Sayedee, have been jailed until death. The appeals of Jamaat guru Ghulam Azam and former BNP minister Abdul Alim against their sentences were dismissed after they died during the appeal hearings.