Confessions concocted
Saad Hammadi exposes the manner in which state law enforcement agencies implicate persons on criminal charges by forging confessions through torture, threat and financial benefits
In April this year, sub-inspector Gautam Kumer Roy was allegedly murdered. Five days into his killing, two law enforcement agencies simultaneously began investigating the case. The outcome of their investigation was even more perplexing than the murder itself.
photos by Al-Emrun Garjon
The Detective Branch, on April 23, arrested two suspects while the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) captured two more in connection with the case, two days later. The twist in the case emerged when both the agencies claimed to have identified the main assassin. The agencies arrested two persons by the same name, Ali Haider, claiming responsibility for the murder of SI Gautam, raising further suspicion over the authenticity of state law enforcement agencies' investigation.
The Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner AKM Shahidul Haque, on May 21, said at a press conference that the two arrested by RAB were not the actual killers and that they made their confessions 'out of fear' of the agency, much criticised for its extrajudicial killings. Haque's statement clearly indicates how law enforcement agencies extract confessions or have people confess to something they have not committed.
While the actual Haider, who committed the murder, is yet to be identified, it is certain that one of the two is not involved in the murder and has still confessed out of fear or coercion.
The instance however, is not an isolated case. In the grenade attack on the Awami League rally, on August 21, 2004, Joj Miah, a petty criminal, was set up by the investigators of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to claim the responsibility for the deadly attack. In exchange of his confession, the investigators ensured Joj Miah's family a monthly Tk 2,500 during the period he spent behind bars.
Joj Miah in his confessional statement implicated an underworld gang, Seven-Star behind the attack. In spite of admitting his guilt, inconsistency in his statement led to widespread criticism. Joj Miah could not tell the difference between a grenade and an ordinary bomb to the magistrate he confessed his guilt to, for carrying out the attack.
The CID on March 29, last year, filed a case against three of its former investigators for misleading the investigations on the August 21 grenade attack.
The investigation of the grenade attack which claimed 25 lives and injured hundreds, proved to be based purely on a 'confession', reportedly obtained under duress, mentions the Geneva based Inter-Parliamentary Union, in its 2008 session of the governing council.
According to a 2008-report by the Human Rights Watch, torture remains widespread in Bangladesh and is frequently used by law enforcement officials to coerce confessions in criminal investigations and to extort money. It is also used for politically motivated purposes against perceived government critics and alleged national security suspects.
After their release in 2008, businesspersons and politicians, targeted in the government's anti-corruption campaign alleged that an intelligence agency illegally detained them at its offices inside the military cantonment in Dhaka for days or weeks and subjected them to physical torture, harsh interrogation methods, and sleep deprivation. Former detainees also allege that the agency used threats and extortion to force suspects to transfer arbitrary sums of money to state coffers and individual accounts.
'Our investigations nowadays are mostly based on confessions,' says ASM Shahjahan, a former inspector general of police. 'Almost 50 per cent of the confessions are later challenged in the courts.'
Incompetence in investigation and interrogation tactics, and poor use of forensics are mainly the reasons why the police and other law enforcers most often resort to confessional statements, which in many cases are concocted, say experts in law and order and human rights.
While the constitution of the country mentions that a person may not be forced to become a witness against himself in court, curiously, it is frequently the offenders themselves who confess their guilt over committing heinous acts, to the extent of murders, before judicial magistrates under section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
'Section 164 is a section whereby an accused confesses his guilt,' explains senior advocate, Anisul Huq, also an eminent criminal lawyer of the country. 'To make this confession above suspicion, to make it conform to the constitution and the Evidence Act, this confession is made to a judicial magistrate and he is given exclusive control over the accused so that it is understood by the offender that the confession that he is going to make is not coerced but on his free will.'
However, as sources mention, the circumstances are not always as ideal as it is prescribed. A police official on condition of anonymity says, the fear and insecurity that a detained is sometimes acquainted with while in custody of law enforcing agencies, means that he or she finds it better to admit his guilt and serve sentence than face electric shock or die in crossfire.
Unwilling to be quoted, a senior lawyer also says that there are also times when a magistrate notes down statements directly from the confessional statement derived by the police under section 161 of CrPC, instead of recording what the accused had to say.
'Such cases are usually politically influenced,' he says. Under this section, the police records the confession of an accused for the purposes of investigation, which however, has little significance to the proceedings in court.
Eighty per cent of the confessional statements under section 164 are later retracted, says Huq, also the principal state counsel in the Sheikh Mujib murder case. 'The constitution says that an offender cannot be forced to become a witness against himself.'
Advocate Shahdeen Malik, a Supreme Court lawyer, explains the different purposes of seeking confessional statements. Under general circumstances, police show their evidences to the accused. They show how they have nailed the person. After they complete their investigation, they request the person to confess.
A confessional statement is sought, usually to save a lengthy investigation and trial process as well as man-hour loss, he says. However, in Bangladesh, due to law enforcers' incompetence at proving someone's guilt and also due to political intervention, most often, the accused is threatened to confess his guilt in front of the court, facing dire consequences otherwise.
In 2006, Ekhlasur Rahman was implicated for the murder of journalist Shaikh Belaluddin, Khulna bureau chief of a Bengali daily, Sangram. Ekhlas, one of the six charge sheeted accused in the murder, confessed to the metropolitan magistrate under section 164 about his involvement in the murder on July 13, 2006. However, while in jail, Ekhlas submitted a petition to the chief metropolitan magistrate through the jail superintendent to retract his judicial confession. In his petition, Ekhlas mentioned that the investigation officer of the case forced him to make the confession under section 164, threatening him with crossfire.
Given the dependency of law enforcers on confessions as their prime evidences, the circumstances under which these confessions are derived naturally come under question. While the confession of the two Ali Haiders shrouds mystery over the actual assassin and the false implication of Joj Miah puts the state's law enforcement agencies under utter distrust, there are many similar cases that go unreported.
According to a quarterly report prepared by human rights organisation Odhikar, between January and March this year, at least 80 members of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), accused in the Peelkhana BDR mutiny trial have retracted their confessional statements. Their applications for retraction stated that they were tortured and forced to provide confessional statements.
'There are always ways in which the accused is threatened of further torture if he discloses to the judge that he was tortured,' says Malik. There was a judgement in the case of Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust vs Bangladesh, where the High Court directed that an accused be remanded only in the presence of a lawyer or a friend. Malik regrets that the directive of the High Court is hardly ever followed.
Not just section 161 or 164, but the state's law enforcement agencies in the past have also been found to exercise unlawful means to extract confessions to use against a person.
Odhikar believes that extracting confessional statements by application of torture is a severe violation of human rights and of prevalent criminal laws in the country. Although Bangladesh ratified the United Nations Convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, on October 5, 1998, its provisions are not being followed. According to this Convention, a person shall not be physically or mentally tortured or subjected to any form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. This provision is also endorsed in Article 35(5) of the Bangladesh Constitution.
On July 14, 2009, Md Liakot Ali Babul was picked up by members of RAB-10 from the 'Milu Auto' shop on the Ponchayet Koborsthan Road near Bangshal. Babul was tortured by one Major Abu Mohammad Siddique Alam, for demanding dues from Alam's father ABM Shah Alam for a grill work he rendered. An Odhikar fact finding report reveals severe physical torture used on Babul, who was later forced to sign on a 150 taka stamp document, which read: 'I am a criminal. I lead the narcotics trade in the area I live.' Later on, the forces set him free.
While incidents of torture and coerced confessions continue right under the radars of law and order observers, the inspector general (IG) of police, Noor Mohammad in reference to the case of SI Gautam says, 'mistakes can happen when they (law enforcement agencies) are trying to claim credit for arrests.'
Taken blindfolded
Saad Hammadi reveals the horrors of remand and interrogations carried out by members of the law enforcement and certain other intelligence agencies
 photos by Al-Emrun Garjon |
Every time his remand is about to expire, Mahmudur Rahman, the acting editor of the Bengali daily Amar Desh, is taken to an unknown location for interrogation from the custody of his investigating officer. Rahman, who faces sedition charges along with 33 other cases implicated on him so far, was taken on remand for the second time on June 20, for three days.
At 6:35am in the morning, on June 23, he was taken out of the custody of the Detective Branch of Police, investigating his sedition charge. Human rights organisation, Odhikar, received information that he was taken to the office of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) for interrogation, at Dhaka Cantonment.
The police arrested Rahman from his newspaper office at 4:00am in the morning on June 2. The magistrate court, on June 9, ordered that he be taken on remand to the Tejgaon Police Station. However, in contravention to these orders, Rahman was kept in the Cantonment Police Station.
When produced in court on June 12, he appealed to the court for the safety of his life and gave an account of the inhuman and degrading treatment he went through in remand. The magistrate at the court allowed for him to be seated due to his inability to stand, mentions a human rights report.
The lawyers representing Rahman held a press conference on June 23, at the National Press Club, expressing their concern regarding the physical and mental torture and ill- treatment of their client and to demand his release.
Advocate Sanaullah Mian, president of the Dhaka District Bar Association and Advocate Masud Ahmed Talukder, both representing Rahman, mentioned how he was taken to an unknown destination on June 23, by a two-vehicle contingent, where the vehicles had no license plates. They also stated that when they contacted the DB office about his whereabouts, the officers informed them that he was not in their custody.
Altogether, 34 cases (28 of which are defamation cases) have been filed against Mahmudur Rahman, reports Odhikar.
According to the report, 'in Bangladesh, most of the torture carried out by law enforcement agencies is when they have the accused in "remand" for "interrogation".'
Several high-profile corruption suspects, mostly politicians, arrested by the armyled joint forces since the declaration of emergency on January 11, 2007, alleged that they were tortured in custody. Some of them, including former minister Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim and businessman, Giasuddin Al Mamun, told the courts that they were tortured and even threatened with death in 'crossfire' by the law enforcers grilling them in custody.
Tarique Rahman, currently the senior vice president of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was first to make a formal allegation of torture against law enforcers. Later on, allegations of harassment and torture were also made by a Dhaka University (DU) teacher, who had been detained following the campus protests in August 2007. Detained former prime minister, Khaleda Zia on June 24, 2008, said in a special court that torture in custody led to the worsening health conditions of her two detained sons – Tarique Rahman and Arafat Rahman. The BNP demanded international investigation under the United Nations (UN) into the allegations of torture on Tarique and Arafat.
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HarkatulJihad alIslami Bangladesh leader Mufti Hannan told a Dhaka court in August 2008, that he was inhumanly tortured in custody in the name of interrogation. Filing a petition to retract his 'confessional statement' in the August 21 grade attack case, Hannan told the court that he had been inhumanly tortured to sign a statement that was dictated and written by the law enforcers and not voluntarily given by him. According to him, he was given electric shocks on sensitive parts of his body. Hannan's case was one of the many incidents of torture in custody.
During the regime of the military backed interim government, the joint forces arrested Awami League leader, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim on the night of May 21, without any warrant, and took him away after a four-hour search in his residence.
Selim was blindfolded and taken to an unknown place, instead of a police station; he claimed in a retraction petition that he submitted to a Dhaka court on December 3, 2007.
Selim is among the many politicians who divulged about the brutalities and torture they underwent during the interrogation by lawmen.
The Awami League lawmaker in his retraction petition told the court that intolerable physical and mental torture and threats to kill him in 'crossfire' forced him to give a judicial statement in connection with a Tk 2.99 crore extortion case.
Selim later submitted the petition to the Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court, set up in a special arrangement at the MP Hostel on the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban premises.
He was produced before the court on May 30, with a three-day remand prayer.
Nonetheless, with every grant of remand, Selim was blindfolded and taken to an unknown area for interrogation. Similarly on May 30, the court granted his remand, and he was again blindfolded and taken to an unknown place.
After a fortnight on June 17, two persons identifying themselves as members of the government met Selim and asked him to give a confessional statement before a court. They also told him that he would be acquitted if he made deposition as approver in the case, the petition said.
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The AL leader was produced before a court on June 18, with a two-day remand prayer. Blindfolded, he was once again taken to an unknown place where some persons interrogated him on different issues, misbehaved with him and tortured him physically and mentally.
The interrogators also threatened to implicate Selim on charges of recovering firearms from his possession, unless he agreed to make confessional statements in line with their interests. However, seven months later, in December 2007, Selim filed a petition stating, 'I am withdrawing the confessional statement I have given in the case.'
While in the cases of Rahman and Selim, the interrogations were harsh and the places they were taken to for interrogation were never disclosed, former FBCCI president, Abdul Awal Mintoo had a rather different experience with the lawmen.
Mintoo described the call as: 'The room had no window except a small hole. An 800-watt bulb hanging from the ceiling kept the room heated up. Thick grills from inside the room secured the exit with a wooden door from outside.'
'Our laws have the provision to take one on remand,' he says. According to a Supreme Court (SC) directive, even in remand, one is supposed to be questioned in front of lawyers.
However, during the emergency rule, certain parts of the constitution were infringed. 'I was granted remand from the court and the court granted the remand on request of Cantonment Police Station. But I do not know where I was taken,' says Mintoo. 'I know that a policeman did not interrogate me,' he adds.
'Throughout the time, my eyes were blindfolded. I do not know where I was taken. Under such circumstance, where does my protection remain?'
In an interview with Xtra, he says, 'the lawmen wanted to find out my relations with the leader of the opposition and the current prime minister as well as other politicians. Based on my confession, they tried to implicate people but they could not do it.'
The interrogators identified themselves to Mintoo as members of the defence, police and tax authority. 'Although I was officially remanded for three days, I was actually kept in custody for seven days.'
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