Thanks for the answering, your analysis is well balanced as far as addressing this critical situation goes(by any chance you don't have a politician in your family
). Also this is a quite an emotional trial based on my readings from the links here and hopefully your judiciary can keep its calm and composure for this decision. It does have a parallel similar to the post ww2 trials but as long as justice is done, i hope pakistan and bangladaise can get along again. For what i hear from my gramps, people in our extended family that served to this day regret there decisions and ironically are alcoholics so I can only imagine what would have happened on the innocents. Hopefully after this trial is done, the people do not hold a grudge against the folks in west pakistanise as some responses indicate from my limited understanding keeping in mind.
I'm not a politician, nor any of my family members.
Emotions can be a great way to start off in anything as in the birth of Bangladesh. But by being emotional all the way till the end does not yield pretty results. It never does.
And that is what is happening in the violent and volatile nature of Bangladeshi politics. There is close to no ethical standards in the politics of Bangladesh either.
Bangladesh's courts are controlled by the government by the way. So that raises some questions.
Some say that this trial is more about petty politics and power-mongering. Jamaat-Islami, Bangladesh has an alliance with the main opposition party, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). The current ruling government is apparently trying to weaken the opposition through this trial.
Going by a person's mere whims on such matters and twisting the law always yield disastrous results if we look at history.
There are very few and powerful nations in the world that can overrule the conventions of the International Criminal Tribunal. And Bangladesh is certainly not one of them.
And another thing: Evidence against the accused. Solid evidence. Not random he said she said from 2nd or 3rd hand accounts.
The current government cannot control the sociopolitical implications coming out of this trial, among other issues such as a caretaker government. And the country is still boiling.
I've always supported progressive relations with Pakistan, given our painful history.
However, I doubt if the Awami League would ever do so. Part of their ideology is based on the sheer hatred of Pakistan.
Even if this trial is miraculously successful, they'll still endlessly hound Pakistan over other reasons like Afghanistan, terrorists, ISI, LeT, etc.
And what's more, Bangladesh still demands an apology from Pakistan. I think it'd be more progressive if we ask for information leading to evidence against today's living war criminals, and justice be served. Only if our leaders realize that.
The key is to move forward, not remain stagnant or worse, backwards. I fear we are going backwards.
Mainstream Western media know well in advance about the credibility of this trial.
A war crimes trial which addresses an issue where apparently over 3 million innocents were butchered in a matter of 9 months during the Cold War days.
How can they ignore that?