Me quasem Ali

Mir Quasem Ali , sometimes also Mir Kashem Ali ( Bengali মীর কাসেম আলী Mīr Kāsem Ālī ; born December 31, 1952 in Munshi Dangi Sutalori, Manikganj District , East Pakistan , today Bangladesh ; † September 3, 2016 in Gazipur ), was a Bangladeshi politician of Bangladesh Islamist Party Jamaat-e-Islami and businessman. He was sentenced to death for war crimes in the Bangladesh war by the International Crimes Tribunal , a Bangladeshi special court. The judgment was carried out on September 3, 2016.

biography

Mir Quasem Ali grew up in what was then East Pakistan. He attended Chittagong Government College , where he graduated in 1969 and then took up a bachelor's degree . There he was elected local chairman of Islami Chhatra Sangha, the youth organization of Jamaat-e-Islami, in 1969. According to his later prosecutors, he was the leader of paramilitary groups of the Razakars during the time of the Bangladeshi independence movement and the independence war of 1970-71 ( Urdu رضا کار, "Volunteers"), al Shams ( Arabic الشمس, "The sun") or al Badr ( Arabic البدر, "The full moon"). These militias were recruited from the local population of East Bengal and worked with the Pakistani military in suppressing the East Bengal independence movement. In many cases they acted as real death squads that carried out numerous murders, rapes and looting.

After Bangladesh gained independence in 1971, Jamaat-e-Islami was initially banned as a political organization and its leaders either fled abroad or went underground. The new government made efforts to deal with the war crimes legally. However, other pressing problems, particularly the severe economic crisis and famine, came to the fore. In 1975 there was a military coup and a short time later there was an extensive amnesty for the crimes of war. Mir Quasem Ali also went underground for some time after 1971, but then resumed his studies and graduated in 1974 with a BA from Ideal College in Dhaka . On February 6, 1977, he founded Islami Chhatra Shibir , the later student organization of Jamaat, as its chairman he acted. From 1980 he was politically active in the re-legalized Jamaat-e-Islami and later rose to the executive committee.

Ali was a successful businessman. He became chairman of Keari Ltd , a real estate and tourism company, chairman and director of Diganta Media Corporation Ltd , which owned the daily newspaper Naya Diganta and the television channel Diganta TV . In addition, he was director of Islami Bank , u. am All these companies were closely linked to Jamaat and Mir Quasem Ali was considered the party's largest financier and financier, who on the other hand also benefited from its extensive relationships in other Islamic countries.

process

After the parliamentary elections in 2008 , the Awami League came to power under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina . The Awami League, which is traditionally secular and anti-Islamist, started with the election promise, among other things, to tackle the war crimes from the War of Independence legally. In 2009/10 the International Crimes Tribunal was set up, which in the following period arrested and charged a number of alleged war criminals. On June 17, 2012, an arrest warrant was issued against Mir Quasem Ali. The proceedings were opened on November 17, 2013. Ali was charged on 14 counts. Twelve charges included the kidnapping, detention and torture of several people in the Chittagong area in November 1971. Two charges included multiple murders. All the acts took place at the Dalim Hotel in Chittagong - requisitioned property of a Hindu family - which the militia had made their local base. After hearing 27 witnesses (including 3 exonerating witnesses), the court concluded that Mir Quasem Ali had been the local leader and de facto commander of the al-Badr militia, which had their headquarters in the Dalim Hotel .

The verdict was announced on November 2, 2014. Ali was acquitted on four counts, found guilty on the others (including the murder) and sentenced to death. The public in Bangladesh met with some satisfaction and approval, and some with rejection. Jamaat-e-Islami called for a 24-hour general strike to protest. The defense filed on 30 November 2014 the Supreme Court of Bangladesh revision one. From February 7, 2016, it was tried in the Supreme Court, and on March 8, 2016, the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty . The full judgment was published on June 6, 2016 by the appeals court . The attorneys then filed a request for a review of the verdict. This application was originally due to be judged by the Supreme Court on July 25, 2016, but this date has been postponed to August 24, 2016. On August 30, 2016, the Supreme Court Appeals Division denied Mir Quasem Ali's attorney's motion.

The latter decision of the appellate body was criticized by Amnesty International , which called it an "unfair trial" and called for the death sentence to be suspended immediately. After the verdict, the condemned man's last resort was to appeal to the president for clemency. However, political observers rated the likelihood that President Abdul Hamid would grant such a request as low. Of the five people sentenced to death and executed in the war crimes trials so far, only two had made use of this option and the requests were immediately rejected. Quasem Ali told me that he would not make a decision on a petition until he had spoken to his son. The son, Mir Ahmed Bin Quasem, was a lawyer on his father's defense team but, according to the family, was taken from his house in Mirpur by five unidentified people in civilian clothes who had pretended to be police officers on August 9, 2016 been. Since then, there has been no sign of life from him.

In the late evening of September 3, 2016, local time, Mir Quasem Ali was hanged in Gazipur Kashimpur Prison .

Web links

• The Chief Prosecutor Versus Mir Quasem Ali (PDF) In: International Crimes Tribunal. November 2, 2014 (grounds for judgment, English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} The Chief Prosecutor Versus Mir Quasem Ali. (PDF) International Crimes Tribunal, November 2, 2014, p. 8: VI. Brief account of the Accused , accessed on March 9, 2016 (English, writing on the grounds of the judgment). 
2. ↑ Golam Rosul: Who is this Quasem Ali? The Asian Age, March 9, 2016, accessed March 9, 2016 . 
3. ↑ Arrest warrant for Mir Quasem Ali. bd24news.com, June 17, 2012, accessed March 9, 2016 . 
4. ↑ Mir Quasem's trial ends. In: The Daily Star. May 5, 2014, accessed March 9, 2016 . 
5. ^ The Chief Prosecutor Versus Mir Quasem Ali. (PDF) In: International Crimes Tribunal. November 2, 2014, p. 235: SENTENCE , accessed on March 9, 2016 (English, text on the grounds of the judgment). 
6. ^ Death for Bangladesh Islamist leader Mir Quasem Ali. BBC News, November 2, 2014, accessed March 9, 2016 . 
7. ↑ Defense to appeal against Quasem verdict. In: Dhaka Tribune. November 2, 2014, accessed March 9, 2016 . 
8. ↑ War crimes convict Mir Quasem Ali appeal verdict on Mar 2. bdnews24.com, February 24, 2016, accessed on May 8, 2016 . 
9. ↑ SC releases full verdict on Mir Quasem Ali. The Daily Observer (Bangladesh), June 6, 2016, accessed July 25, 2016 . 
10. ↑ Hearing on Mir Quasem's review plea July 25 , June 21, 2016, accessed on July 25, 2016 . 
11. ↑ Ashif Islam Shaon: Mir Quasem's review hearing deferred by a month. Dhaka Tribune, July 25, 2016, accessed July 25, 2016 . 
12. ^ Suliman Niloy: Jamaat-e-Islami tycoon Mir Quasem loses final battle to dodge death penalty for war crimes. bdnews24.com, August 30, 2016, accessed August 30, 2016 . 
13. ↑ Bangladesh: Halt imminent execution of Mir Quasem Ali after unfair trial. Amnesty International, August 30, 2016, accessed September 1, 2016 . 
14. ↑ PTI: Countdown starts for Bangla Jamaat stalwart, Mir Quasem Ali's execution. The Economic Times, August 31, 2016, accessed September 1, 2016 . 
15. ↑ No decision on mercy plea until Quasem's son returns. The Daily Star, August 31, 2016, accessed September 1, 2016 . 
16. ↑ Kamal Talukder, Abul Hossain: Jamaat's Mir Quasem Ali hanged for war crimes as Al-Badr chief of Chittagong. bdnews24, September 3, 2016, accessed on September 3, 2016 (English).