He has been convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity in Fulbaria.

A three-member bench of the International Crimes Tribunal headed by Justice Md Shahinur Islam passed the judgement on Thursday after wrapping up a hearing from prosecutors and the defendant on Mar 21.

It is the 32nd verdict in war crimes cases since the tribunal was formed in 2010.

According to the verdict, four allegations brought against Fakir have been proved. He was sentenced to death on two charges and jailed for life for the other two.

Fakir has been behind bars since the trial began on Dec 11, 2016.

According to the investigation agency, Fakir was a member of Al-Badr, a paramilitary force responsible for mass killings during Bangladesh’s Liberation War against Pakistan in 1971. He was involved with Jamaat-e-Islami that openly opposed the liberation struggle.

Charges submitted to the tribunal in 2016 linked Fakir to five war crimes. The 69-year-old man was in the dock during the verdict.

Initially three persons were accused in the case but later Amjad Ali’s name had been dropped from the list as he fell sick after being arrested and died in jail.

The tribunal removed the name of another suspect Wajuddin after he had died while on the run.

Of the 74 people accused in 32 cases in war crimes so far, five died during trials.

Of them, 69 people were punished, with 42 sentenced to death. </s> DHAKA: A Bangladesh court on Wednesday sentenced Tarique Rahman, the acting chairman of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), to life in jail, and 19 more to death, over a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2004, lawyers said.The opposition is in disarray ahead of general elections set for December, with Tarique Rahman trying to run its campaign from exile in London after his mother and party leader, former premier Khaleda Zia, was jailed on corruption charges in February. A special court gave the death penalty to 19 people, several of them BNP leaders, including former junior home minister Lutfuzzaman Babar, for an attack on a public rally in 2004, government lawyer Mosharraf Hossain Kazal told reporters. Rahman and other BNP members were among the 19 sentenced to life terms. However, the government is dissatisfied with the sentence and will appeal to the Supreme Court, seeking the death penalty for Rahman, Kazal added.

“We are not happy with this judgment as we expected that all of them (BNP members) would get death sentences, especially Tarique,” he said. Minutes into Hasina’s speech at the rally in 2004, assailants threw grenades that killed 24 people and wounded more than 500, most of them workers of her Awami League party, which was in the opposition at the time.

The court delivered the verdict “as per government wish,” said BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir. “We reject this verdict,” he told a news briefing. The party plans to challenge the court verdict, its lawyer, Sanaullah Mian, said. </s> Bangladesh arrests former NSI boss with links to 1971 war crimes

Former National Security Intelligence or NSI director general Muhammad Wahidul Haque has been arrested on charges of committing crimes against humanity during the War of Independence from Pakistan. </s> A Dhaka court has handed down death penalty to 19 people, including two former ministers, and sentenced a top opposition leader to life imprisonment over a 2004 attack on the current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The special court awarded life imprisonment to Tarique Rahman, exiled son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who is already languishing inside a Dhaka jail following her conviction in a corruption case.

Rahman, who is also the acting chairman of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was also jailed for 10 years in absentia in the same corruption case as her mother. He has been living in exile in London since 2008.

The security in and around the special tribunal in the capital, Dhaka, was beefed up anticipating protests from BNP leaders and activists.

Senior BNP leaders, including former State Minister of Home Affairs Lutfuzzaman Babar and former Deputy Minister of Education Abdus Salam Pintu, were given capital punishment for hatching the plot to assassinate Hasina.

The ‘August 21 grenade attack case’, as it is known in Bangladesh, relates to the deadly attack on a rally organised by Hasina’s Awami League (AL) in Dhaka in 2004 when she was the opposition leader.

Hasina narrowly survived the attack after some of her party leaders formed a human shield around her, but up to 20 people were killed, including top AL leader Ivy Rahman, in the attack.
A court in Bangladesh sentences Riaz Uddin Fakir to death for war crimes during the 1971 Liberation War.