The trial of fugitive war crimes accused Engineer Abdul Jabbar, former Jatiya Party MP of Pirojpur, will begin in absentia with charge hearing on July 20 before the International Crimes Tribuinal-1.
After exercising all the legal procedures, including the last part of the appointment of state defence counsel for the fugitive accused, the three-member tribunal, headed by Justice M Enayetur Rahim, set the date on Tuesday.
Before passing the order, the tribunal appointed advocate MA Hasan as state defence counsel for fugitive accused Engineer Jabbar and asked the designated prosecutor Zahid Imam to immediately provide him with the relevant copies of the documents and papers in connection with the case for groundwork.
According to the Mathbaria Police Station report, the accused is out of the country for long. On May 11, the prosecution officially submitted to the ICT Registrar the proposed charge accusing engineer Jabbar of perpetrating the crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971.
The prosecution pressed five counts of war crimes charges against the former Jatiya Party MP, believed living in the USA now.
On April 29, after working for over 11 months, the investigation officer (IO) of the case ASP M Helal Uddin submitted the investigation report to the prosecution. The IO of the case also submitted a list of 44 prosecution witnesses to prove the charges as proposed against Jabbar.
IO Helal Uddin found Jabbar’s involvement in crimes like killing, genocide, arson, looting and forcefully converting many Hindus to Muslim in then Mathbaria thana of Pirojpur during the war. Jabbar was made chairman of local thana Peace Committee (collaborator) and he organised Razakar outfit in Mathbaria, according to investigation report.
Octogenarian Jabbar of Khetachhira under Mathbaria was the vice-chairman of Jatiya Party. He remained absconding since 2009.
Jabbar joined the then Muslim League through his father-in-law, Arshed Ali, who was an influential Muslim League leader. Later, he joined the Jatiya Party of Gen (retd) HM Ershad and was twice elected Member of Parliament with Jatiya Party tickets in 1986 and 1988.
