IGP Mamun acted as commander, Gen Ziaul played key role: ICT chief prosecutor

Chief Prosecutor Muhammad Tajul Islam on Wednesday told the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in the capital that Abdullah Al-Mamun Chowdhury, former inspector general of police (IGP), was the 'supreme commander' of the mass killing that took place during the July-August revolution.

Besides, Ziaul Ahsan, former major general and director general (DG) of National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre (NTMC), played the key role during this killing, he added.

During the hearing of an allegation, the chief prosecutor also compared the former army official with the Serbian atrocious war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, who are known as 'the butchers of the Balkans'. "Ziaul Ahsan is the butcher of Bangla," Mr Tajul said.

Upon completing the hearing, the tribunal set December 19 for submitting probe report over allegations of killings, genocides and crimes against humanity against these two officers and six other police officials.

The six other accused are: Abdullahel Kafi, former additional superintendent of police; Md Jasim Uddin Mollah, former deputy commissioner, Mirpur Zone; Md Shahidul Islam, former additional superintendant of police; and Abul Hasan, former officer-in-charge of Jatrabari Police Station; Mazharul Islam, former officer-in-charge of Gulshan Police Station; and Arafat Hossain, former inspector at Detective Branch of police.

The three-member tribunal had shown these eight accused as arrested, and also ordered to keep them in detention until further order.

The tribunal, led by Justice Md Golam Mortuza Mozumder, fixed the date, as the prosecution pleaded for two months time for submitting report on investigation against the alleged crimes committed by the arrested security officials.

Other two members of the ICT are: Justice Md Shofiul Alam Mahmood, and former district and sessions judge Md Mohitul Haque Enam Chowdhury.

During the hearing, Muhammad Tajul Islam read out a summary of the allegations brought against the accused.

Implicating former IGP Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun for all the crimes committed during the July-August mass uprising, the chief prosecutor said police, its different units like DB, CID and APBn, and RAB worked under his supreme command, and carried out the barbaric crimes that are rare in history.

"He, being the supreme commander, bears the liabilities behind all the crimes, as he was in a superior position."

"Sacked major general Ziaul Ahsan was the father of the culture of enforced disappearance, torturing people in different torture centres, and killing and disposing their bodies."

"Whoever tried to raise their voice against the Awami League government, Ziaul Ahsan, first being a senior official of RAB and later as the DG of NTMC, abducted them, made them victims of enforced disappearance, tortured them, put them through near-death experience," the chief prosecutor added.

"During his tenure as the NTMC DG, Ziaul Ahsan imported many globally banned technologies or equipments, only to keep the people of opposite ideology and opinion under surveillance. Even during the July-August mass uprising, the information blackout was enforced following his order, so that the people in and outside the country do not know about the atrocities being carried out by the government and its machineries."

Tajul Islam also narrated the crimes of Abdullahel Kafi, Md Shahidul Islam and Arafat Hossain, saying that the police killed more than one hundred people in a single spot in Savar under Kafi's order.

Meanwhile, at the end of Wednesday's proceedings, Ziaul Ahsan stood up inside the box, where he was made to sit with other accused, in the courtroom, and pleaded for the court's permission to let him speak.

"The job I used to do was a technical one. I never worked in any Aynaghar (torture camp)," he said.

The ICT chairman asked him to place his points through his lawyers.

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