Arrest warrant issued against Sheikh Hasina and 30 others

The International Crimes Tribunal-1 has accepted two cases relating to enforced disappearances and issued arrest warrants against former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and 30 others.

The cases allege that during the Awami League’s long rule, opposition figures were abducted and held at the RAB’s Task Force for Interrogation (TFI) cell and the Joint Interrogation Centre (JIC), where they were subjected to torture. Sheikh Hasina was named the prime accused in both cases.

On Wednesday, October 8, a three-member judicial panel led by Tribunal-1 chairman Justice Md Golam Mortuza Mozumder took the charges into cognisance and ordered the arrest warrants.

Earlier, formal charges had been submitted against Sheikh Hasina and 13 others. On the same day, two separate formal charges were placed: one over enforced disappearances at the TFI cell, implicating Sheikh Hasina, Tarique Siddiqui and 15 others on five counts; and the other over enforced disappearances at the JIC, implicating Sheikh Hasina, Tarique Siddiqui and 11 others on five counts.