From: zmhasan@neumann.waterloo.edu (Z. Masum Hasan)
Subject: Golam Azam
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 02:49:45 GMT


        DHAKA, Bangladesh (UPI) -- A leading opposition lawmaker Sunday
demanded parliament form a war crimes tribunal to try the country's most
powerful Islamic fundamentalist leader for his role in Bangladesh's 1971
war of independence.
        Tofael Ahmed of the main opposition party the Awami League said
fundamentalist party leader Golam Azam was an accomplice in the deaths
of 3 million Bengalee nationalists who won a nine-month war of
independence against Pakistan.
        Azam, a Pakistani citizen, was appointed leader of the Jamaat-i-
Islami party in December and jailed March 24 on charges of residing in
the country illegally and violating the country's constitution by
becoming Jamaat's leader.
        Azam returned to Bangladesh in 1978 after fleeing the country in late
1971.
        The Jamaat, under Azam's leadership, and other fundamentalist parties
fought on the side of the Pakistan army during the 1971 war, when nearly
10 million Bengalees fled to neighboring India.
        During the final stages of the war, hundreds of Bengalee
intellectuals, doctors, engineers and other leading citizens were
kidnapped and killed, allegedly by a death squad known as the Al-Badr,
which was formed exclusively of young Jamaat activists.
        Tofael Ahmed demanded parliamentary action after some 125,000
supporters gathered March 26 in a ``people's court'' that staged a mock
trial of Azam and found him guilty of war crimes.
        The government called the people's court illegal and charged 24
participants with conducting anti-state activities and with posing a
threat to the established legal system of the country.
        But Ahmed told parliament Sunday that people's courts were
internationally acceptable democratic forums where people could bring
charges and express their verdict in the absence of any other legal
channels.
        ``Golam Azam is a war criminal and this parliament should act as a
people's court with the speaker as the chairman,'' Tofael said.
        Ahmed's position was endorsed by Lt. Col. Akbar Hossain, a former
minister and member of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
        Hossain said the people's court was a perfectly democratic expression
of the public's demand for justice, and he thanked its organizers for
``making the younger generation aware of the crimes committed by Jamaat
in 1971.''
        Leading government ministers including Prime Minister Khaleda Zia
remained silent throughout the debate, which was scheduled to continue
Monday.
        Ahmed, an Awami front-bench member of parliament, said a law enacted
in July 1973 provided for trial by tribunals of people accused of war
crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
        Earlier Sunday, Jahanara Imam, a 63-year-old author and chairman of
the March people's court, led a large procession that handed a
memorandum to the speaker of parliament, Shaikh Razzaque Ali, asking the
house to put into effect the people's court verdict.
        Jamaat, which also handed a petition to the speaker in the late
afternoon, contends that Azam is a Bangladesh national by virtue of
birth.
        The country's high court has been asked to decide the fundamentalist
leader's claim to citizenship.



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