Ghulam Azam Politician
Ghulam Azam (Bengali: গোলাম আযম; 7 November 1922 – 23 October 2014) was a convicted Bangladeshi war criminal and politician who led the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh in the 1971 Bangladesh genocide which may have killed as many as 3 million people and was instrumental in the 1971 killing of Bengali intellectuals. He led the party until 2000. Azam opposed the independence of Bangladesh during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.On 15 July 2013 a Bangladeshi special tribunal (the International Crimes Tribunal) found Azam guilty of war crimes such as conspiring, planning, incitement to and complicity in committing genocide, and gave him a 90-year prison sentence. The tribunal stated that Azam deserved capital punishment for his activity during Liberation war of Bangladesh but was given a lenient punishment of imprisonment because of his age and health condition. The trial has been criticized by several international observers, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Human Rights Watch, which was initially supportive of a trial subsequently criticized its "strong judicial bias towards the prosecution and grave violations of due process rights", calling the trial process deeply flawed and unable to meet international fair trial standards. Notably, it was at the center of the 2012 ICT Skype controversy.As a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, he led the formation of the Shanti Committees which were formed at the time of the Liberation War alongside other pro-Pakistan Bengali leaders. Azam was accused of forming paramilitary groups for the Pakistani Army, including Razakars, and Al-Badr. These militias opposed the Mukti Bahini revolutionaries who fought for the independence of Bangladesh, and also stand accused of war crimes.Azam's citizenship of Bangladesh had been cancelled by the Bangladeshi Government because of his role during the Bangladesh Liberation War. He lived in Bangladesh illegally without any authorised Bangladeshi visa from 1978 to 1994, when the Bangladesh Supreme Court reinstated his citizenship.Azam was arrested on 11 January 2012 on the charges of committing war crimes during the Bangladesh Liberation War by the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh. The tribunal rejected the plea of bail after noting that there were formal charges against Azam of which it had taken cognisance.He died of a stroke on 23 October 2014 at BSMMU at the age of 91.
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