BANGLADESH: ONE SENTENCED TO DEATH, TWO TO LIFE IN PRISON FOR WAR CRIMES

A special tribunal sentenced a person to death while two others to life in prison for crimes committed during Bangladesh’s 1971 war of liberation from Pakistan, officials said.
The court headed by Justice Md Anwarul Haque handed down death penalty to Mohibur Rahman alias Boro Mia, 66, and life imprisonment to his younger brother Mujibur Rahman alias Angur Mia, 61, and cousin Abdur Razzak, 63.
The convicts hailed from Bangladesh’s north-eastern district of Habiganj.
Four counts of war crimes charges including murder, rape, abduction and arson attacks during the nine-month war were proved against them, prosecution lawyers said.
Prosecutor Sultan Mahmud Simon said the death penalty and life in jail were given in the charges that implicated the trio to the killing of two freedom fighters.
For raping women, they were awarded 20 years of rigorous imprisonment while for confinement and torture of unarmed civilian the convicts were given seven years of rigorous jail.
They were awarded 10 years of jail for the arson and looting of the house of MA Rob, the Liberation War’s deputy commander-in-chief.
The prosecution launched the investigation into the accusations on February 11, 2014. They were arrested a year later after the special tribunal issued arrest warrants for them.
The trio was indicted in war crimes on May, 19, 2015.