UNHCR denounces Bangladesh death sentences

The United Nations Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay expressed alarm at the death sentences handed out in Bangladesh to 152 paramilitary soldiers for their role in a 2009 mutiny. Navi Pillay urged the Government not to proceed with the death penalty, particularly given concerns about the fairness of the trials, (UN news center) reported. "The crimes committed during the mutiny were utterly reprehensible and heinous, and my sympathies are with the grieving families, but justice will not be achieved by conducting mass trials of hundreds of individuals, torturing suspects in custody and sentencing them to death after trials that failed to meet the most fundamental standards of due process," said High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. "The perpetrators of the crimes must be held accountable in compliance with the laws of Bangladesh and the country's international obligations, including those pertaining to fair trial standards, as laid down in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Bangladesh ratified in 2000," she said in a statement. "The trial of these 847 suspects has been rife with procedural irregularities, including the lack of adequate and timely access to lawyers." The officers of the Bangladesh Border Guards were convicted of crimes such as murder and sexual assault during a February 2009 mutiny in Dhaka, when 74 people, including army officers, were brutally killed. Bodies were dumped in ditches and some wives of army officers were sexually assaulted, according to the UN news center. Pillay called for an independent and thorough investigation into the allegations of human rights abuses, particularly custodial torture and deaths that took place after the mutiny. UNHCR chief also expressed concern about the conduct of the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) established in 2010 by the Bangladeshi Government to try citizens accused of committing atrocities during the country's 1971 independence war.