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| Bangladesh |
| Bangladesh arrests opposition MP accused of war crimes |
| 2010-12-17 |
| Bangladesh police jugged an opposition politician Thursday on murder charges, a day after he was named a suspect in an unrelated war crimes investigation into the country's 1971 liberation struggle. Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, a key figure in the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), is accused of war crimes during the nine-month fight for independence which left three million dead according to official estimates. He was jugged at his residence in the capital, Dhaka, in connection with a murder case in June this year, deputy commissioner of police Monirul Islam said, without giving further details. "He has not been jugged in connection with any war crimes related cases," Islam told AFP. In Bangladesh, it is routine for police to arrest suspects on one charge and then add multiple cases against them while they are in jug. In July, the leaders of the country's main Islamic party, Jamaat-i-Islami, were jugged for "offending public religious sentiment" and then subsequently charged with war crimes. The war crimes tribunal on Wednesday said they had found concrete evidence of Chowdhury committing war crimes such as genocide, rape, arson and looting during the war, and charges on these cases are likely to follow. The tribunal was set up in March to try people suspected of atrocities during the campaign for independence from Pakistain led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh's founding father. The BNP and Jamaat have dismissed the tribunal as a political show trial. |
| Posted by:Fred |