Taher's martial law trial challenged
HC asks for 34-year-old records of the tribunal
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| Col Abu Taher |
The order came in response to a writ petition filed by Taher's wife Lutfa Taher and his brother Anwar Hossain.
The HC also directed the government to explain why the Martial Law Regulation No.16 of 1976, under which Taher was tried and executed 34 years back, should not be declared illegal and unconstitutional.
It asked the government to show why the orders of the special martial law tribunal that convicted and sentenced Taher and others will not be adjudged illegal.
Besides, it sought explanations why the then government's executing the orders of the tribunal should not be declared unlawful.
Secretaries of the law, liberation war affairs, defence and home ministries, the inspector general (prisons) and superintendent of Dhaka Central Jail will have to come up with the answers within three weeks.
The home and defence secretaries and the IG (prisons) will have to produce the trial records.
Justice AHM Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik and Justice Sheikh Md Zakir Hossain comprise the HC bench.
Fatema Yusuf, wife of Yusuf Ali Khan who was sentenced to life term in the same trial, is a co-petitioner.
The petition says Taher, a sector commander during the Liberation War, and 16 others were tried for sedition inside Dhaka Central Jail on July 17, 1976. Justice Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayem was the president and Ziaur Rahman the chief martial law administrator of the country then.
The then government executed Taher on July 21, 1976. It however did not disclose anything about the trial proceedings, charges against the accused and the execution.
"Lutfa Taher was never given any documents on the trial proceedings and the judgment," Shahdeen Malik, counsel for the petitioner, told The Daily Star yesterday.
He said no information is available except a report published in the now defunct national daily Bangladesh Observer. The news report carried names of 32 persons, and said 17 of them including Taher were convicted and the rest acquitted.
The Special Martial Law Tribunal was formed on July 14, 1976, and the case against Taher and others was its first case.
Of its five judges, three were officers of the army, navy and air force and two were from magistrate courts, the lawyer added.
During yesterday's hearing, Shahdeen said the people involved in the trial and subsequent execution had taken an oath of secrecy under the Martial Law Regulation.
He later told The Daily Star that lawyers of the hush-hush trial had also taken the oath and there was no provision for appeal against the sentences.
According to the Martial Law Regulation-16, the punishment for divulging information of the tribunal proceedings and orders was three years' imprisonment.
Shahdeen said the constitution does not allow secret trials and prohibitions on appeals against capital punishment awarded by the Special Martial Law Court.
Any kind of trial has to be held in open court as per the constitution, he said, adding that, this provision of the Martial Law Regulation was illegal and unconstitutional.
The petitioners prayed to the court to direct the authorities concerned to produce the records of the case and trial so that they could know what actually happened.
The Supreme Court recently released the full text of a judgment that declared the Fifth Amendment of the constitution illegal.
The amendment had legitimised the governments and military rule and martial law regulations since the murder of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15, 1975, up to April 9, 1979. Khandker Mushtaque Ahmed, Abu Sadaat Mohammad Sayem and Maj Gen Ziaur Rahman led the governments during this period.
Shahdeen said the Supreme Court in judgements had declared the Martial Law Regulations illegal and unconstitutional, except those made in people's interest.
Prof Anwar Hossain, a petitioner and brother of Col Taher, told reporters at the Supreme Court yesterday that it took them 34 years to move with the writ petition since there was no congenial atmosphere before to file such a petition.
He said they have filed the petition now as they became hopeful about getting justice following some recent judgments of the Supreme Court.
He said they wanted to know why his brother was killed and why 16 people were sentenced in a hush-hush trial.
Profile
Taher was born in 1938. He joined the Pakistan army in 1960.
Along with three other Bangalee officers and a sepoy, he had escaped from the then West Pakistan to join the Liberation War in July 1971.
Taher led the fight against the occupation army in sector 11. He was given 'Bir Uttam', the second highest award for valour in the war of independence.
His left leg was blown off from above the knee during the war. After treatment in India, he returned to Bangladesh in April 1972.
He entered politics in October 1972, and was elected vice-president of the central organising committee of Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal.
Against the backdrop of a serious crisis in the army after the killing of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Taher organised a people-soldier uprising on November 7, 1975.
On November 24, he and 31 others were tried at a martial law tribunal inside Dhaka Central Jail. Within 72 hours of the court's sentencing him to death, he was hanged on July 21, 1976.
[The Daily Star prepared this brief profile by talking to Taher's brother Prof Anwar Hossain]
http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=152018
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