The Supreme Court of Bangladesh has ordered the release of Azharul Islam, the leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami in a case related to crimes against humanity on Tuesday.
Born in 1952, Azharul Islam was among six senior political leaders sentenced to death under former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid. Hasina’s 15-year authoritarian rule as prime minister ended in August 2024, when a student-led uprising forced her to flee to India. Political parties, including Jamaat-e-Islami, are gearing up for the much-anticipated general elections, which the interim government has promised will be held by June 2026.Azharul Islam’s lawyer, Shashir Munir, said his client was lucky because four senior leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami and one of the Bangladesh National Party have already been hanged.
Lawyer Munir told reporters that he got justice because he was alive, the Appellate Division failed to review evidence in other crimes against humanity cases. Azhar-ul-Islam was sentenced to death in 2014 for alleged rape, murder and genocide during Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. Jamaat-e-Islami supported a united Pakistan during the war, a role that still fuels anti-Jamaat sentiment among many Bangladeshis today. The Jamaat-e-Islami leader, Hasina Wajid’s father and a rival of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of the Awami League, who became the founder of Bangladesh, Hasina Wajid banned the Jamaat-e-Islami and cracked down on its leaders during her tenure.
Azhar-ul-Islam had appealed against the death sentence in 2015, but the court upheld the decision in 2019, after which he filed a review petition in 2020. When the student movement took on the colour of a popular uprising, a mob of Bangladeshi people stormed the palace of 77-year-old Hasina Wajid in Dhaka. Hasina Wajid fled from there by helicopter to India, where she lives in self-imposed exile, while her party, the Awami League, has been banned.
India has rejected Dhaka’s extradition request for Hasina Wajid, the former Bangladeshi prime minister who killed at least 1,400 protesters in a failed bid to seize power and faces charges of crimes against humanity related to a crackdown on students last year. After Hasina Wajid’s fall from power, Azhar-ul-Islam filed an appeal on February 27, again appealing against his conviction, which was acquitted of all charges by a full bench headed by Chief Justice Syed Rifat Ahmed on Tuesday.
Jamaat-e-Islami supporters celebrated on the occasion, with Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh leader Shafiqur-ur-Rehman telling reporters that the party also remembers those who were hanged, as they were victims of judicial killings. Shafiqur-ur-Rehman said that his party, as an individual or a party, is not above the law. “We apologize if we have done anything wrong”. He completed his statement without answering any further questions.
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