Single war tribunal by next month

The government is likely to merge the two war crimes tribunals within August, as the number of pending cases has dropped after the disposal of 20 major cases.

“The two international crimes tribunals will be merged into one after their judges return to the country from a conference in Argentina,” Law Minister Anisul Huq told The Daily Star on July 16.

Merging the two tribunals is a matter of time, he said without elaborating.

In March this year, the law minister told this correspondent that there was no need to keep six High Court judges engaged in the tribunals for the remaining cases.

Anisul Huq had also said there was a huge backlog of cases pending with the HC and those would be heard and disposed of quickly if some of the tribunal judges return to the HC.

A tribunal source said the six judges of the two tribunals are supposed to attend a two-week international conference in Argentina to share their experience of holding war crimes trial and come back before the end of August.

The issues regarding their going to Argentina would be finalised within this month, the source added.

The Awami League-led government formed the first tribunal on March 25, 2010 in line with the party's electoral pledge to try people who committed crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971.

The government formed a second tribunal on March 22, 2012 to expedite the trial.