Brigadier General (retd) Abdullahil Aman Azmi was kept in a room with modern facilities at the Joint Interrogation Cell (JIC). The room measured 17 by 22 feet and was equipped with air conditioning.
During the hearing of a crimes against humanity case over enforced disappearance at the JIC on Tuesday, defense lawyers submitted documents and evidence to the International Crimes Tribunal. These materials revealed the details of Azmi’s confinement.
Abdullahil Aman Azmi is the son of former Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Ghulam Azam.
According to the documents, three army officers accused in connection with Azmi’s disappearance were not involved. A report submitted to a military investigation court also found no involvement of them. Nevertheless, the enforced disappearance case mentioned 17 people, including the three army officers and ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina, as accused.
The three officers are Brigadier General Ahmed Tanvir Mazahar Siddiqui, Major General Sheikh Md Sarwar Hossain, and Brigadier General Md Mahbubur Rahman Siddiqui.
On 22 October, the International Crimes Tribunal sent these three and 10 other army officers to jail in two separate cases of enforced disappearances and murders during Sheikh Hasina’s regime. They were later kept in a government-declared special prison at Dhaka Cantonment, from where they were produced before the tribunal on Tuesday.
After the fall of the Awami League government last year, Azmi came out of the JIC and filed complaints against 11 army officers. The military investigation court’s report, prepared in response to those complaints, described the conditions of his room.
Based on this report, defence lawyers for the three arrested officers submitted petition before the tribunal seeking their acquittal of the charges.
Earlier, the prosecution had claimed that Azmi and others were kept in cells under inhumane conditions during their enforced disappearance, which caused them to fall ill after prolonged confinement.
