Govt trying to bring back war criminals Mueen, Ashraf

The government's effort has been continuing to bring back convicted war criminals Chowdhury Mueen Uddin from the UK and Ashrafuzzaman Khan from the US.

"We are maintaining constant communication with these two countries and working as part of the efforts to bring them back," foreign ministry's spokesperson Seheli Sabrin said at a weekly media briefing at the ministry on Sunday.

Mueen and Ashraf were sentenced to death after the Special War Crimes Tribunal found them guilty of abducting and murdering 18 intellectuals including nine university teachers, six journalists and three doctors in December of 1971.

Immediately after December 16, 1971, when Bangladesh achieved victory in the war, Mueen, a leader of the infamous Al-Badr Bahini, fled Bangladesh and emerged as a leader of the Muslim community in the UK.

After his conviction, Bangladesh requested the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) to issue a red notice to arrest Mueen.

Ashrafuzzaman was a leader of the then Jamaat-e-Islami's student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha and then became a commander of the Al-Badr, a death squad formed by Jamaat with Pakistani army's help to cleanse Bangladesh of its intelligentsia in 1971.

As Al-Badr commander, he not only helped in the abduction and massacre of the intellectuals but himself shot seven professors of Dhaka University in the killing ground of Mirpur.

/KN/