War Crimes
War crime convict dies in Sylhet
A convicted war criminal died on Friday while serving his term at the Sylhet Central Jail.
He was identified as Mujibur Rahman Angur Mia, 67.
Read:War criminal Mahbubur Rahman dies at Kashimpur jail
He breathed his last on Friday afternoon at Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College Hospital.
Earlier he suddenly fell sick in the morning and was rushed to the hospital from the jail, reported our correspondent.
He was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment after allegations of war crimes were proved against him.
Confirming the death of Mujibur Rahman, senior jail superintendent of Sylhet Central Jail Muhammad Manjur Hossain said, "He died of old age health complicacies."
Read: War criminal Abdus Subhan dies at DMCH
Mujibur was arrested and sent to Dhaka Central Jail on February 12, 2012.
The International Criminal Tribunal sentenced him to a lifetime in jail on June 1, 2016.
He was serving his terms at Habiganj District Jail before being transferred to Sylhet Central Jail in May this year.
According to jail sources, he was sent to Sylhet MAG Osmani Hospital for better treatment after he fell ill with various ailments including chest pain. After being taken there, the doctor on duty declared Mujibur dead.
Human Rights Watch: Israeli war crimes apparent in Gaza war
Human Rights Watch on Tuesday accused the Israeli military of carrying out attacks that “apparently amount to war crimes” during an 11-day war against the Hamas militant group in May.
The international human rights organization issued its conclusions after investigating three Israeli airstrikes that it said killed 62 Palestinian civilians. It said “there were no evident military targets in the vicinity” of the attacks.
The report also accused Palestinian militants of apparent war crimes by launching over 4,000 unguided rockets and mortars at Israeli population centers. Such attacks, it said, violate “the prohibition against deliberate or indiscriminate attacks against civilians.”
Also read: War's trauma apparent in portraits of Gazan children
The report, however, focused on Israeli actions during the fighting, and the group said it would issue a separate report on the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in August.
“Israeli forces carried out attacks in Gaza in May that devastated entire families without any apparent military target nearby,” said Gerry Simpson, associated crisis and conflict director at HRW. He said Israel’s “consistent unwillingness to seriously investigate alleged war crimes,” coupled with Palestinian rocket fire at Israeli civilian areas, underscored the importance of an ongoing investigation into both sides by the International Criminal Court, or ICC.
There was no immediate reaction to the report by the Israeli military, which has repeatedly said its attacks were aimed at military targets in Gaza. It says it takes numerous precautions to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for civilian casualties by launching rocket attacks and other military operations inside residential areas.
The war erupted on May 10 after Hamas fired a barrage of rockets toward Jerusalem in support of Palestinian protests against Israel’s heavy-handed policing of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, built on a contested site sacred to Jews and Muslims, and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers in a nearby neighborhood. In all, Hamas fired over 4,000 rockets and mortars toward Israel, while Israel has said it struck over 1,000 targets linked to Gaza militants.
Also read: Israeli airstrikes target Gaza sites, first since cease-fire
In all, some 254 people were killed in Gaza, including at least 67 children and 39 women, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Hamas has acknowledged the deaths of 80 militants, while Israel has claimed the number is much higher. Twelve civilians, including two children, were killed in Israel, along with one soldier.
The HRW report looked into Israeli airstrikes. The most serious, on May 16, involved a series of strikes on Al-Wahda Street, a central thoroughfare in downtown Gaza City. The airstrikes destroyed three apartment buildings and killed a total of 44 civilians, HRW said, including 18 children and 14 women. Twenty-two of the dead were members of a single family, the al-Kawlaks.
Israel has said the attacks were aimed at tunnels used by Hamas militants in the area and suggested the damage to the homes was unintentional.
In its investigation, HRW concluded that Israel had used U.S.-made GBU-31 precision-guided bombs, and that Israel had not warned any of the residents to evacuate the area ahead of time. It also found no evidence of military targets in the area.
“An attack that is not directed at a specific military objective is unlawful,” it wrote.
The investigation also looked at a May 10 explosion that killed eight people, including six children, near the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. It said the two adults were civilians.
Israel has suggested the explosion was caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket. But based on an analysis of munition remnants and witness accounts, HRW said evidence indicated the weapon had been “a type of guided missile.”
“Human Rights Watch found no evidence of a military target at or near the site of the strike,” it said.
The third attack it investigated occurred on May 15, in which an Israeli airstrike destroyed a three-story building in Gaza’s Shati refugee camp. The strike killed 10 people, including two women and eight children.
HRW investigators determined the building was hit by a U.S.-made guided missile. It said Israel has said that senior Hamas officials were hiding in the building. But the group said no evidence of a military target at or near the site and called for an investigation into whether there was a legitimate military objective and “all feasible precautions” were taken to avoid civilian casualties.
The May conflict was the fourth war between Israel and Hamas since the Islamic militant group, which opposes Israel’s existence, seized control of Gaza in 2007. Human Rights Watch, other rights groups and U.N. officials have accused both sides of committing war crimes in all of the conflicts.
Early this year, HRW accused Israel of being guilty of international crimes of apartheid and persecution because of discriminatory polices toward Palestinians, both inside Israel as well as in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel rejected the accusations.
In Tuesday’s report, it called on the United States to condition security assistance to Israel on it taking “concrete and verifiable actions” to comply with international human rights law and to investigate past abuses.
It also called on the ICC to include the recent Gaza war in its ongoing investigation into possible war crimes by Israel and Palestinian militant groups. Israel does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction and says it is capable of investigating any potential wrongdoing by its army and that the ICC probe is unfair and politically motivated.
EXPLAINER: Are Israel, Hamas committing war crimes in Gaza?
A week into their fourth war, Israel and the Hamas militant group already face allegations of possible war crimes in Gaza. Israel says Hamas is using Palestinian civilians as human shields, while critics say Israel is using disproportionate force.
Who’s right? It’s hard to say, especially in the fog of battle.
The firing of hundreds of imprecise rockets into Israel by Hamas and other Palestinian groups is fairly clear-cut. International law prohibits targeting civilians or using indiscriminate force in civilian areas. Rockets slamming into Tel Aviv apartment blocks is a clear violation.
But in Gaza, where 2 million people are packed into a narrow coastal strip, the situation is far murkier. Both sides operate in dense, urban terrain because that’s pretty much all there is. Because of the tight space and intense bombardments, there are few safe places for Gazans to go. A blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt after Hamas seized power in 2007 makes it virtually impossible to leave.
Read:Israel strikes Gaza tunnels as truce efforts remain elusive
As a grassroots movement, Hamas is deeply embedded in Palestinian society, with a political operation and charities separate from its secretive armed wing. While Israel and Western countries view Hamas as a terrorist organization, it is also Gaza’s de facto government, employing tens of thousands of people as civil servants and police. So just being connected to Hamas doesn’t mean someone is a combatant, and there are many in Gaza who oppose the group — and all are equally exposed with nowhere to run.
Earlier this year, the International Criminal Court launched an investigation into possible war crimes committed by Israel and Palestinian militants during the last war, in 2014. Both sides already appear to be using the same tactics in this one.
Here’s a look at potential violations of international law.
URBAN COMBAT
Palestinian fighters are clearly operating in built-up residential areas and have positioned tunnels, rocket launchers and command and control infrastructure in close proximity to schools, mosques and homes.
A prosecutor would have to prove that the combatants deliberately placed military assets near civilians to benefit from protections afforded to noncombatants during war.
“If France invades Switzerland, the Swiss are not prohibited from defending Geneva, including by putting Swiss soldiers, Swiss artillery positions and so on inside Geneva,” said Marco Sassoli, professor at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.
Because international humanitarian law applies to all sides in any conflict, the French could fight in Geneva as well. But here the issue of proportionality applies on the big picture level: To continue the analogy, was the French assault on Geneva proportional to the provocation?
PROPORTIONALITY
Israel’s critics often accuse it of the disproportionate use of force. They note that the undeclared nuclear power, with the region’s most powerful military, is waging war on a militant group armed with little beyond long-range rockets, the majority of which are intercepted by Israel’s anti-missile defenses. As in the past, the toll in the current conflict is dramatically lopsided, with at least 200 killed in Gaza, nearly half of them women and children, and 10 in Israel, all but one of them civilians.
Read:China puts forward four-point proposal regarding Palestine-Israel conflict
Israel argues it has the right to eliminate the threat from rockets, including command infrastructure connected to it. It says it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians, including by warning them ahead of some strikes. But Sassoli said that in past conflicts, Israel had a “quite large concept of what is a legitimate military objective.”
Proportionality in international law also applies to individual attacks, but experts say proving a specific attack is disproportionate is extremely difficult. One would need to know what was targeted, what military advantage was gained, and whether it exceeded the harm inflicted on civilians and civilian property. That means that in practice, only the most extreme cases are likely to be prosecuted.
On Saturday, Israel bombed a 12-story building housing the Gaza offices of The Associated Press and the Al-Jazeera news network, as well as dozens of private apartments and small businesses, including a law firm, a lab for blood testing and a TV production company.
The Israeli military warned residents to evacuate the building, and no one was hurt.
The military says there was a considerable Hamas presence in the building, including a command and control center, an intelligence unit and other infrastructure used to coordinate combat operations. But it has provided no evidence.
AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt has said he was “shocked and horrified” by the attack, and AP has called for an independent investigation. “We have no indication of a Hamas presence in the building, nor were we warned of any such possible presence before the airstrike. This is something we check as best we can,” Pruitt said Monday.
Sassoli said it would be “completely unlawful” to attack a media center, but it’s impossible to know whether the bombing was justified without knowing what the military was targeting.
Strikes causing civilian casualties raise strong proportionality questions.
Read:Israel says Gaza tunnels destroyed in heavy airstrikes
On Sunday, Israel launched heavy airstrikes along a main thoroughfare in Gaza City, saying it was targeting Hamas’ “underground military infrastructure.” The bombardment toppled three buildings and killed at least 42 people, including 16 women and 10 children. A day earlier, a strike in a crowded refugee camp killed 10 women and children. Israeli media said the military was aiming for senior Hamas officials meeting in the building.
UNDERGROUND ARMY
Members of Hamas’ armed wing rarely if ever wear uniforms or identify themselves in public, and they go underground as soon as hostilities begin, along with the political leadership.
The vast majority of Hamas supporters are not involved in fighting, which means they aren’t supposed to be targeted. The International Committee of the Red Cross defines a combatant as someone with a “continuous combat function” or those engaged in combat at the time they are targeted, a widely adopted definition.
So even if a building were filled with die-hard Hamas supporters, experts say it wouldn’t be considered a legitimate target unless they were actively involved in combat operations.
Report reveals Myanmar mobile operator Mytel fuelling state corruption
A detailed investigation into the Myanmar military’s involvement in the information and communications technology sector has uncovered a "web of cronyism and corruption".
Six people sued for war crimes in Khulna
Six men have been accused of committing crimes against humanity in Khulna during the Liberation War in 1971.
The accused are -- Md Sohrab Hossain Mollah, 70, Md Motiar Rahman Sana alias Monisana, 72, Md Elai Gazi, 72, Md Jhur Sheikh, 70, Md Sirajul Islam, 71, and Md Abdul Khalek, 68.
Sukhjan Bibi, a resident of Garkhali village of Dakope upazila, filed the case with Khulna Metropolitan Magistrate Court on Thursday.
According to the case statement, the accused committed crimes against humanity including killing, abduction, looting, and rape as members of auxiliary forces like Razakars and Shanti Bahini during 1971.
Also read: 5 Gaibandha men get death penalty for war crimes
Khmer Rouge’s chief jailer dies at 77
Kaing Guek Eav, the Khmer Rouge’s chief jailer, who had been serving a life prison term for war crimes and crimes against humanity died at a hospital in Cambodia on Wednesday. He was 77.
War crimes: Kosovo president, 9 others indicted
Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and nine other former separatist fighters were indicted for their involvement in crimes against humanity and war crimes charges including murder on Wednesday.
An international prosecutor has brought the charges against Thaci and nine others after probing their actions against ethnic Serbs and others during and after Kosovo’s 1998-99 independence war with Serbia.
Charges were brought against them for killing 100 people, enforced disappearance, persecution, torture and others.
Because of the indictment, Thaci has postponed his trip to Washington, where he was to meet Saturday for talks at the White House with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.
“The President of Kosovo has just informed us that he has canceled his trip to Washington, DC following the announcement made by the Special Prosecutors Office. I respect his decision not to attend the discussions until the legal issues of those allegations are settled,” tweeted Richard Grenell, the US. envoy for the Kosovo talks.
The talks will still go ahead, with Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti, he added.
A statement from the prosecutor of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers said Thaci and the nine others “are criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders” involving hundreds of Serb and Roma victims, as well as Kosovo Albanian political opponents.
Other charges include enforced disappearance, persecution and torture, he said.
A pretrial judge at The Hague-based court is currently studying the indictment and could still reject it if there is not enough evidence to back it up. If there is enough evidence to support the charges, the pretrial judge will confirm them.
Thaci was a commander of the so-called Kosovo Liberation army, or KLA, that fought for independence from Serbia. The war left more than 10,000 dead — most of them ethnic Albanians — and 1,641 are still unaccounted for. It ended after a 78-day NATO air campaign against Serbian troops.
The former ethnic Albanian-dominated province declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which Serbia did not recognize.
The indicted group includes Kadri Veseli, former parliament speaker and leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo.
Veseli said the indictment is politically motivated.
“Taking into account the time and circumstances (of the indictment), only days before the White House meeting, one would fairly doubt that it was accidental,” Veseli said.
“Crimes in Kosovo were committed by Serbs, not Albanians,” he said, calling it an attempt to rewrite history.
Several top Serbian officials and military officers have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms by a different war crimes court in The Hague for crimes committed by Serbian troops during the war.
“The court is trying to stain our liberating war, our aspiration for freedom and independence and legalize the (Serb) crimes in Kosovo,”said Bardhyl Mahmuti, a former KLA political representative, to the public television station, RTK.
The indictment was the first made by the prosecutor of the special tribunal for Kosovo based in The Hague. The court has been operating since 2015 and has questioned hundreds of witnesses. Kosovo’s prime minister resigned last year before he was questioned.
Myanmar panel: Security forces likely committed war crimes
An independent commission established by Myanmar's government has concluded there are reasons to believe that security forces committed war crimes in counterinsurgency operations that led more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.
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The Independent Commission of Enquiry (ICOE) in Myanmar submitted its final report on Monday noting that war crimes, serious human rights violations, and violations of domestic law took place during the security operations between August 25 and September 5, 2017.
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The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court will deliver its verdict on January 14 on an appeal filed by war criminal and former Jatiya Party state minister Syed Mohammad Qaiser challenging his death sentence.