Human Rights Watch (HRW) have criticised an armed police raid on the offices of a prominent defence lawyer in the Bangladeshi war crimes trials, calling the raid ‘a grave affront to the basic tenets of fair trials.’
Asia Director at HRW, Brad Adams said:
“A raid by armed intelligence officers on the offices of defence lawyers without a warrant and for no discernible reason marks a very dangerous turn in an already flawed process,”
“The Bangladeshi government needs to publicly condemn this action or risk the appearance of being responsible for this egregious violation of fair trial standards.”
“It is only when both sides are treated as equals, and when codes and laws of professional conduct are strictly adhered to, that victims of atrocities and the wider public can be confident that the justice they have sought for so long is based on a legitimate trial process.”
Trials are currently taking place in Bangladesh against those accused of war crimes in the 1971 War of Liberation.
See here for full HRW Press release.
