Search Results - Golam Azam

Ghulam Azam

Ghulam Azam}} (7 November 192223 October 2014) was Bangladeshi politician and writer who served as ameer of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamist political party in Bangladesh.

As a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, during the war he supported the Pakistan Army in its Operation Searchlight (1971), a crackdown on Bengali nationalists in the then East Pakistan (later Bangladesh), by leading the formation of the East Pakistan Central Peace Committee. Azam has been accused of forming paramilitary groups for the Pakistani Army, including Razakars, and Al-Badr during the ensuing 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. These militias opposed the Mukti Bahini members who fought for the independence of Bangladesh, and were also involved in war crimes during the Bangladesh genocide. After the independence of Bangladesh, he led the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh until 2000. His citizenship was cancelled by the Bangladeshi government in 1978 and he subsequently lived informally in the country till 1994 when its was reinstated by the Supreme Court.

Azam was arrested on 11 January 2012 by the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh (ICT) on charges of committing war crimes during the liberation war. On 15 July 2013, the ICT found him guilty of war crimes such as conspiring, planning, incitement to and complicity in committing the genocide and was sentenced to 90 years in jail. The tribunal stated that Azam deserved capital punishment for his activity during the war, but was given a lenient punishment of imprisonment because of his age and poor health condition. The trial was criticized by international observers such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Human Rights Watch, which was initially supportive of a trial subsequently criticized "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.

He died at age 91, following a stroke, on 23 October 2014 at BMU. Thousands of people attended his funeral prayers that were televised and held at Baitul Mukarram. Provided by Wikipedia