Jabbar's trial to be held in absentia

A tribunal in Dhaka yesterday decided to initiate the trial against former Jatiya Party lawmaker Abdul Jabbar for his alleged involvement in crimes against humanity committed in Pirojpur during the Liberation War in 1971.
The court also fixed July 20 for the hearing on charge framing against the absconding accused.
Mohammad Abdul Hasan was made the tribunal appointed defence lawyer for Jabbar.
On May 12, the three-member panel of International Crimes Tribunal-1 headed by its chairman Justice M Enayetur Rahim issued an arrest warrant against the 82-year-old former politician after taking five war crimes charges into cognisance.
The same day, Prosecutor Zahid Imam told the court, “He [Jabbar] went abroad in 2009 and returned to Bangladesh the same year but since then there has been no trace of him.”
The law enforcers have failed to find any trace of Jabbar and he has not yet surrendered before the tribunal himself.
Jabbar as the alleged chairman of Mathbaria Peace Committee “played a key role” in the formation of the Razakar force there and “led it” to commit crimes during the war, the prosecution claimed.
The prosecution recently brought the five charges against him for killing, mass killing, looting and forced conversions in Pirojpur in 1971.
A probe report notes that Jabbar was involved in killing 36 people, looting and destroying 557 houses and forcing 200 Hindus to convert to Islam.
He was elected lawmaker from Mathbaria in 1986 and 1988 on a Jatiya Party ticket but retired from politics later.