Will meet ministers, political leaders, civil society groups

The US Ambassador-at-large for the Office of Global Criminal Justice, Stephen J Rapp, is coming to Dhaka on his fifth visit since the beginning of the war crimes trials in Bangladesh, reports bdnews24.com.

He will arrive today (Monday) morning on a three-day visit for a round of meetings with stakeholders related to the trials, says a foreign ministry official.

According to the US embassy, he will meet senior government officials, political leaders and civil society groups.

A former prosecutor for courts trying crimes against humanity, Rapp will also meet ministers for foreign affairs and law.

He will also visit the Liberation War Museum today, his itinerary shows.

Rapp first visited Bangladesh in Jan 2011, when the government set up the international crimes tribunal to try crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 war of independence.

Later, he wrote a 10-page letter to the foreign and law ministers on how the International Crimes Tribunal's Rules of Procedure could be amended to ensure that "its proceedings are independent, fair and uphold international standards".

He was the former prosecutor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the International Crimes Tribunal of Rwanda.

Last year, he visited Dhaka at a time when the tribunals handed down several deaths penalties to Jamaat-e-Islami leaders that triggered a spate of violence.