NEWS-TRIAL:Coup plotters go on trial in Bangladesh after 22 years

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Coup plotters go on trial in Bangladesh after 22 years
by Nadeem Qadir

DHAKA, April 17 (AFP) - The trial of 20 people accused of killing
Bangladesh's founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is set to open
Monday, 22 years after his death and amid heightened security for
his surviving family.

The alleged leaders of the 1975 coup, some of whom hailed their
actions at the time as a "successful revolution," believed they
would never face a court hearing and led comfortable lives at
home and abroad.

But the climate changed when Mujibur Rahman's daughter, Sheikh
Hasina Wajed, led her Awami League back into power in the June
1996 elections, after 21 years in opposition, defeating the
Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

Sheikh Hasina, who is now prime minister and who escaped the
killings because she and her sister were abroad, has made it a
personal crusade to bring her father's killers to trial.

She pledged soon after taking office that the alleged coup
plotters would "definitely be tried on the soil of Bangladesh
so that no culprit could ever dare to commit such heinous acts
against humanity."

Gunmen backed by tanks surrounded the family home at dawn on
August 15, 1975 and mowed down eight of her family including
her father, mother Fazilatunnesa, and all three brothers among
them 11-year-old Sheikh Russel.

Young Sheikh Russel reportedly pleaded for his life before being
gunned down as her eldest brother, Kamal, vainly tried to defend
his family with a machine gun.

Sheikh Hasina told a memorial recently for her brother: "Let no
innocent child be ever killed, let no sister like me ever have
to bear the shock of tragic death of her innocent brother."

Six people have been arrested in connection with the killings
and are due to appear at Monday's hearing, but 14 others are on
the run, even though the government sought help from Interpol to
track them down.

The accused include former army officers, including the alleged
mastermind of the attack, retired colonel Faruq Rahman and former
minister Taheruddin Thakur, both held in prison.

Among the fugitives is another alleged key plotter, retired
colonel Abdur Rashid, while his wife Zobaida Rashid is on bail.

Judge Kazi Golam Rasul set the April 21 trial date after indicting
the 20 alleged coup plotters following several days of pre-trial
hearings.

But he promised the defendants: "We are here to ensure justice of
a murder case under the laws of the land and the accused will get
maximum protection and facilities as far as the law allows."

Each of the 14 fugitives has been appointed a lawyer by the courts
to ensure they are defended at the trial in the high-security Dhaka
Central Jail complex.

Tight security has been imposed and so far only journalists and
lawyers are allowed to enter the courtroom. Court officials said
close relatives would be allowed to witness the proccedings.

Sources told AFP security had also been tightened around the prime
minister.

Home Minister Rafiqul Islam has confirmed that a plot by a suicide
squad to assassinate Sheikh Hasina when she went to offer prayers
at her father's grave was foiled in August last year.

Those involved in the plot were allegedly linked to the extreme
rightwing Freedom Party -- factions of which were led by the key
plotters Rashid and Colonel Faruq Rahman -- which is reportedly
backed by Libya and has maintained close links to fundamentalist
groups.

Political analysts have said the coup was a conspiracy by a small
group of army officials and a few right-leaning politicians to
establish a rightist administration close to the Islamic world by
overthrowing the secular and centrist Awami League government of
Sheikh Mujib.

The coup leaders installed the rightwing Khondakar Mushtaque Ahmed,
a senior minister in Sheikh Mujib's cabinet, as president. But they
fled the country on November 3, 1975 after a counter-coup.

In November 1996, parliament scrapped an indemnity act which until
then had protected the coup plotters from legal action. They had
been given diplomatic assignments by successive governments to
protect them abroad.

The Bangladesh press has widely supported the trial, but cautioned
the government against turning it into a "kangaroo court."

The defence has argued the trial is a "James Bond fiction" and the
whole episode is now unclear because "memory fails" over an incident
that happened years ago.

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