In a spectacle that shocked even the most jaded observers of Bangladesh’s crumbling judiciary, the so-called International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD) yesterday turned its courtroom into a political intimidation arena. The target: Senior Advocate ZI Khan Panna, a decorated 1971 Liberation War hero and one of the country’s most respected lawyers. The crime?
Refusing to act as a puppet defense counsel for Sheikh Hasina in two farcical “enforced disappearance” cases that everyone knows are designed to end in one predetermined outcome—death by hanging.
What unfolded on Wednesday was not justice. It was a naked display of vindictive power by a tribunal now universally recognised as a Jamaat-e-Islami revenge machine operating under the patronage of Muhammad Yunus, Tarique Rahman’s BNP, Jamaat chief Dr. Shafiqur Rahman, foreign fixers Toby Cadman and Jon Danilowicz, and—according to multiple intelligence and diplomatic sources—elements within the US “deep state” and Pakistan’s ISI.
A Freedom Fighter Dragged Through the Mud
ZI Khan Panna, wheelchair-bound and visibly unwell, was forcibly summoned from his chamber after he dared to withdraw from representing the exiled former prime minister. Chief Prosecutor Md Tajul Islam—a man who spent years defending 1971 war criminals and Al-Badr commanders—screamed at the elderly lawyer in open court, issuing veiled threats and shouting “Mind your language!” when Panna tried to explain his position.
When Panna cited health reasons and the vicious attacks he was receiving from both prosecution sympathisers and Awami League hardliners (leaving him, in his own words, “sandwiched”), Tajul sneered that Panna’s real client, Sheikh Hasina, “does not respect the tribunal” and that this amounted to contempt of court. Tribunal chairman Justice Golam Mortuza Majumder and his two colleagues sat mostly mute while the chief prosecutor bullied a veteran of the Supreme Court bar for twenty excruciating minutes.
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Eventually, a humiliated Panna was made to apologise on his knees (metaphorically) before the bench replaced him with Amir Hossain—the same state-appointed lawyer who “defended” Hasina in the earlier July massacre case that ended, predictably, with a death sentence handed down in absentia after a trial that lasted under five months.
Tajul Islam: The Face of Jamaat’s Judicial Takeover
Make no mistake—Tajul Islam is not a neutral prosecutor. He is a lifelong Jamaat loyalist who once proudly represented convicted genocide perpetrators at the very same tribunal when it was under Awami League control. Today, wearing the prosecutor’s robe, he openly boasts that the cases against Hasina and senior army officers are “more than revenge.” His social media history is littered with blood-curdling calls for Hasina’s execution. This is the man now deciding who lives and who dies in Bangladesh’s courtrooms.
And he is not alone. Tribunal chairman Golam Mortuza Majumder, prosecutors, investigators, and even some judges have documented Jamaat and Shibir links. The entire apparatus has been captured by the same Islamist network that collaborated with Pakistani occupation forces in 1971. Their mission is simple: reverse the verdicts of history, hang the daughter of Bangabandhu, decapitate the secular officer corps of the Bangladesh Army, and turn the country into an ISI client state under the guise of “reform.”
Yunus, Tarique, Shafiqur, Cadman & the Foreign Hand
Behind Tajul stands a rogue’s gallery of enablers:
– Muhammad Yunus, the unelected interim leader who amended the 1973 ICT Act through illegal ordinances so his kangaroo court could prosecute sitting and former prime ministers.
– Tarique Rahman, acting BNP chairperson, whose party has entered into a public alliance with Jamaat to share power after the “revolution.”
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– Jamaat Ameer Shafiqur Rahman, whose cadres are now embedded in every ministry and commission.
– British barrister Toby Cadman and former American diplomat Jon Danilowicz, two foreign mercenaries who once screamed about “victor’s justice” when Sheikh Hasina tried 1971 war criminals but now happily draft charges and coach prosecutors to ensure those same war criminals’ ideological heirs get their revenge.
– And, according to serving intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, quiet logistical and financial support from certain Washington and Islamabad circles that see a weakened, Islamist-leaning Bangladesh as a useful counterweight to India and China in the Bay of Bengal.
International Outcry
The November 17 death sentence handed to exiled former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and ex-Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal for 2024 “crimes against humanity” has been overwhelmingly condemned as a politically motivated revenge trial.
Amnesty International called it “neither fair nor just,” slamming the lightning-fast in-absentia proceedings, lack of chosen counsel, and the “cruel” death penalty. Secretary-General Agnès Callamard stressed that genuine accountability for the July-August 2024 killings requires impartial trials, not vengeance.
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Human Rights Watch echoed the criticism, branding the trial a violation of ICCPR fair-trial guarantees, especially the right to appear and mount a defense. HRW highlighted the tribunal’s long history of political bias (including under Hasina herself) and reiterated its opposition to capital punishment.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) welcomed accountability in principle but expressed regret over the death penalty and stressed that trials in absentia imposing capital punishment must “unquestionably” meet international due-process standards, which this one did not.
Sheikh Hasina herself rejected the verdict as “biased, predetermined, and illegal,” challenged the Yunus regime to take the case to the ICC, and accused the Jamaat-influenced tribunal of settling old scores. The near-universal verdict from rights bodies: this was victor’s justice, not justice.
A Tribunal That Exists Only to Kill
Sheikh Hasina, speaking from exile, has repeatedly called the tribunal “illegal” and “fascist.” Her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy told India Today the entire process is “predetermined revenge, not justice.” Even neutral Bangladeshi lawyers—those not yet forced into hiding or exile—whisper that no defense counsel can safely represent Awami League or army figures without risking disbarment, assault, or worse.
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Wednesday’s courtroom humiliation of ZI Khan Panna was not an accident. It was a deliberate message to every remaining independent lawyer in Bangladesh: represent Hasina or the army officers at your peril. We will drag you in a wheelchair, shout you down, threaten to make you an accused, and force you to beg forgiveness in public.
The Jamaat-captured ICT-BD is no longer even pretending to be a court. It is a political guillotine dressed in judicial robes, lubricated by foreign money, and protected by the silence of those who once claimed to care about due process.
When a 1971 freedom fighter is bullied and broken into a Dhaka courtroom so that Jamaat can hang his former prime minister, the liberation war itself is on trial.
And the verdict, unless the civilised world finally wakes up, has already been written in blood.
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