[Arab News] A special tribunal dealing with charges of crimes against humanity against four senior leaders of Bangladesh's largest Islamic party ordered authorities on Monday to keep the accused in jail indefinitely.The charges stem from the nation's 1971 war for independence and alleged atrocities committed by Pakistani soldiers in a failed attempt to keep Bangladesh from breaking away. The Bangladeshi
government says the soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed an estimated three million people, raped about 200,000 women and forced millions more to flee their homes during the bloody nine-month war.The suspects being held by the tribunal are from the Jamaat-e-Islami party, which sided with Pakistan during the war in which India backed those seeking independence. The suspects face charges such as genocide, murder, rape, torture, looting and arson. The party has said the charges are politically motivated.
But so, too, were the genocide, murder, rape, torture, looting and arson that resulted in the deaths of three million human beings.
The long-delayed tribunal - which was a campaign promise of Prime Minister Hasina Wajed during elections in 2008 - was finally set up in March.
The suspects include Jamaat-e-Islami party chief Matiur Rahman Nizami and his senior party colleagues Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, Abdul Quader Mollah and Muhammad Kamaruzzaman. They were produced before the three-member tribunal during a hearing on their arrests on Monday.
Justice Nizamul Huq asked authorities to keep them in jail until further order pending the criminal investigation.