Bangladesh Tribunal Accuses New York Imam and President of ICNA, Ashrafuzzaman Khan, of War Crimes and Mass Murder

Despite the carefully constructed myth surrounding Muslim Brotherhood groups in America, advanced  by a hostile and pro-jihadist media, the truth about these killers is out there. 

One
of the chief al-Badr (Jamai Death squad in 1971) executioners. It has
been clearly proved that he himself shot to death 7 teachers of Dhaka university in the killing zones at Mirpur. A certain Mofizzuddin, who drove the vehicle that carried those hapless victims to Mirpur, has clearly identified Ashrafuzzaman as the “chief killer” of the intellectuals. (here)

ICNA’s NY president, Ashrafuzzaman Khan, is charged in the abductions and deaths of 18 people
during the 1971 war with Pakistan that led to Bangladesh’s
independence. When called for comment, Khan said, “I don’t know what is happening in Bangladesh. I am not a citizen
of Bangladesh.” He sounds just like those Nazi war criminals when discovered living new lives in America (or Paraguay, Uruguay, Buenos Aires et al). The only difference is that the Nazis were hiding. These Islamic supremacists are held up as role models and pillars of tolerance and interfaith ishcabibble by media and clueless politicians.

ICNA is long known to Atlas readers. ICNA runs those bus ads (along with CAIR) proselytizing for Islam. It was those very ICNA ads that were the impetus for my first bus campaign. Everyone loved ICNA’s ad (most especially the enemedia and the elites), but I had to sue to get our pro-freedom ads up.

Bangladesh Tribunal Accuses New York Imam of War Crimes Srila Nayak Bangladesh Tribunal, 13 December 2012.

A politically-charged legal proceeding on the
other side of the globe has stirred 40-year-old memories and modern-day
animosities in New York’s Bangladesh community.

At the center of the legal firestorm is Ashrafuzzaman Khan, a
prominent imam and president of the New York branch of the Islamic
Circle of North America (ICNA), in Jamaica, Queens. In October,
prosecutors for the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal (ICT)
announced plans to charge Khan in the abductions and deaths of 18 people
during the 1971 war with Pakistan that led to Bangladesh’s
independence.

Tribunal investigators say that Khan, then 23, was a co-leader of a
student militia group, Al-Badr, that in 1971 collaborated with
Pakistan’s military in opposing independence for Bangladesh. In a report
sent to the tribunal’s prosecutors in October, the investigators allege
that Khan took part in the so-called “intellectual killings” – the
kidnapping and murder of pro-independence professors, journalists and
physicians in the war’s final days. The goal, according to
investigators, was to eliminate elite leaders who might have played key
roles in the new state.  Family members of some of those victims have
said they were abducted from their homes or workplaces by groups of
armed, masked men, then allegedly tortured and killed at an execution
site uncovered after Bangladesh won independence on December 16, 1971.

In a telephone interview, Saiful Islam, one of the prosecutors for
the tribunal, who is directly involved with the charges in Khan’s case,
said the killings were part of  “a master plan,” developed by the
Pakistani military,  “to kill a specific group of unarmed civilian
Bengalis. Ashrafuzzaman carried out a part of this master plan.”

Asked about the charges in a brief telephone interview, Khan, who has
lived in the U.S. for about 30 years and is now an American citizen,
said, “I don’t know what is happening in Bangladesh. I am not a citizen
of Bangladesh.” He declined further comment.

Naeem Baig, a spokesperson for ICNA, which describes itself as an
educational and social services organization for American Muslims, said
the charges would not affect Khan’s position with the group. “Mr. Khan
was elected by ICNA’s local members and he has their support,” said
Baig, who noted that the war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh has been
criticized widely by human rights groups and others.

In its most recent World Report, Human Rights Watch said that the
tribunal’s definitions of war crimes, crimes against humanity and
genocide “fell short of international standards,” as did its standards
for ensuring due process of those accused. To date, investigators have
brought formal charges against nine people, and are preparing to bring
charges against four more, including Khan.  Advocate Islam said that the
court is “scrutinizing” the investigative report on Khan. The tribunal
expects to file formal charges against Khan after December this year.

Others have criticized the tribunal for pursuing only Bangladeshis
who opposed independence in 1971, while ignoring possible crimes by
pro-independence forces and the Pakistani soldiers who fought against
them. Most of the men currently on trial are members of the
Jamaat-e-Islami party, which opposes Bangladesh’s current ruling party,
the Awami League.

“The [Awami League] government has put behind bars political rivals through the tribunal,” said Baig.

But the controversies surrounding the tribunal do not deter some who
have waited 40 years to see justice done for victims of the civil war.

“He [Khan] continues to be active here, preaching, brainwashing
people, year after year,” said Saleem Noor of Queens, whose father was
abducted and killed during the war. “The Nazi war criminals were pursued
and brought to justice. Why can’t the same be done to perpetrators of
war crimes in Bangladesh?”

“We feel people got away with murder and nothing has been done about
it,” said Ikramuddin Ahmed, a Bangladeshi immigrant who now lives in
Wichita, Kansas. The report accusing Khan of war crimes in 1971 charges
him with the abduction and killing of Ahmed’s uncle, Ghiasuddin Ahmed, a
history professor at Dhaka University in the Bangladeshi capital.

According to Ahmed, a group of masked men abducted his uncle from a
student dormitory at the university on the night of December 14, 1971.
He was one of many kidnapped on the same day, said Ahmed. Their bodies
were discovered later in a mass grave.

The allegations about Khan’s involvement in these killings have
circulated publicly since at least 1994, when Bangladeshi war crimes
activist Shahriar Kabir wrote about them in Probashi, a New York-based Bengali newspaper that later folded.  In that article, Khan denied the charges.

The deep divisions over the tribunal and the specific charges against
Khan reflect the volatile politics within Bangladesh itself, and the
lingering bitterness over a bloody war that, by some estimates, claimed
as many as three million lives. Fighting began in March 1971, when
Pakistani forces moved into East Pakistan to crush Bengali demands for a
sovereign nation. The war ended nine months later, after India joined
forces with the Bangladeshi independence movement to defeat Pakistan’s
army.

When Bangladesh won independence, many who had opposed it fled the
new country. Tribunal investigators say that Khan was one of those who
fled, eventually finding his way to the U.S., where he has reportedly
lived since the early 80s, according to friends and associates of Khan.

Khan has been at the center of New York’s Islamic life for many
years. He offers family counseling services through ICNA, officiates at
Muslim weddings and delivers Friday sermons at various mosques in the
city. Khan also organizes annual Hajj pilgrimage tours to Mecca and is
the founder and president of North American Imams Federation (NAIF), an
organization that says it provides supportive services to imams in the
U.S.

But Khan is best known for his role as president of ICNA’s New York
branch, the largest within the Islamic organization, which also serves
as its headquarters. ICNA was started by expatriate members of South
Asian Islamic groups, such as Bangladesh’s Jamaat-E-Islami, in the early
1970s.  It is currently a forum for Muslims throughout North America,
and the organization describes itself as devoted to educating the public
about Islam. It sponsors an annual convention that draws thousands of
Muslims.

[...]

Prosecutors in Bangladesh have said that if the U.S. refuses to extradite Khan to stand trial, he can be tried in absentia.

Three years ago, an online Bengali newspaper reported that the U.S.
Justice Department was requesting information from the Bangladesh
government about Khan, leading to speculation that he might be
investigated for allegations of falsifying information when he entered
the U.S. Eli Rosenbaum, the Justice Department official named by the
paper as the initiator of  the inquiry, said in a brief telephone
interview that his agency “does not comment on potential cases. We can
only comment on cases that have gone to trial, and, even then, only
after the trial concludes.”

Leaders of U.S.-based Bangladeshi groups such as the New York branch
of the Forum for Secular Bangladesh, said they are deeply dismayed that
Khan continues to head community organizations even though he is under
investigation in Bangladesh. The forum had planned a demonstration
against the war crimes of 1971, but it was cancelled earlier this month
after the group failed to get permission on time from the city.

“People suffered a lot during the war. We want to close the chapter
and move forward,” said Abdul Baten, vice-president of the forum. “There
is enough evidence to prosecute Khan. If he is innocent, then he can
prove his innocence in front of the tribunal.”

The charges against Khan come after many years of rumors and
allegations that he was part of an Al-Badr execution squad. Journalists
in the U.S. and Bangladesh have written about the accusations.

“I have been researching the executioners of Bangladesh’s war since
1975, and my account of Khan was part of that effort,” said Jamal Hasan.
“Now Bangladesh has to prove he is a mass murderer,” said Hasan,  a
Bangladeshi-American freelance journalist from Washington, D.C.