Bangladesh authorities are failing to uphold international legal standards at the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a press release issued yesterday.
It warned that shortcomings in the tribunal's proceedings risk denying justice to victims, undermining the rule of law and falsely imprisoning political opponents.
"Those responsible for the many abuses committed under the Sheikh Hasina government should be appropriately held to account, but many prosecutions are falling short of international fair trial standards," said Meenakshi Ganguly, HRW's deputy Asia director.
"Bangladesh needs to urgently reform its criminal justice system, and the new government should ensure that there is no room for political vendettas through shoddy investigations and arbitrary allegations," she added.
The statement came a day after ICT prosecutors submitted charges on Monday against 41 people, including politicians, members of the security forces and two journalists, accusing them of crimes against humanity and genocide.
HRW said its review of more than a dozen ICT cases found serious due process concerns, including arrests without an evidential threshold, prolonged detention without written reasons, restrictions on defence lawyers, limited time to prepare for trial and the use of witness statements containing identical passages across multiple cases.
The rights group also criticised the prosecution of journalists Mozammel Babu and Farzana Rupa over their reporting on the 2013 Hefazat-e-Islam rally.
HRW then cited the case of “Dr Muhammad Hasan Mahmud Chowdhury and others”, saying several of the prosecution's 55 publicly available witness statements contained nearly identical passages.
It also referred to allegations of bribery against a tribunal prosecutor, who later resigned, saying the investigation into the matter remains incomplete.
"Bangladesh authorities need to recognise that they cannot repeat the abuses of the past," Ganguly said.
“Allegations based on duplicated witness statements, however, show the lack of a credible justice process, which will once again fail victims, their families, and all Bangladeshis.”
