Prosecution Opening statement – delivered by Chief Prosecutor Tajul Islam

Today we commence the trial of cases concerning enforced disappearances. These cases do not involve ordinary incidents of missing persons. They are evidence of a deliberate state strategy employed by a neo-fascist Awami League regime—one that did not merely kill secretly and dispose of bodies, but instead perfected a method of prolonged disappearance, keeping thousands of political opponents suspended between life and death.

This method involved detaining individuals without trial for months or years, binding them hand and foot in silent, lightless confinement. The result was the production of fear, uncertainty, and deep, long-term trauma within society. This harm was not confined to political opponents alone; it penetrated the very institutions responsible for public safety, corroding the internal structure of law-enforcement agencies.

Through the practice of enforced disappearance, the Awami fascist state operationalised its extreme political ambition. In doing so, a section of the country’s principal security forces became instruments of repression. The consequence was unprecedented and lasting damage to the state’s own security architecture.

As human beings, individuals possess a minimum inherent dignity. Enforced disappearance annihilates that dignity entirely. For this reason, international law recognises enforced disappearance as a crime against humanity: it simultaneously destroys multiple fundamental rights—the right to life, liberty, legal protection, and recognition as a person before the law.

At no previous point in Bangladesh’s history had the people encountered state-sponsored enforced disappearance on this scale. Between 2009 and 2024, under Sheikh Hasina’s rule, this brutal practice became normalised. Operating under the shield of state power, the disappearance system sent a stark message: the state could erase anyone completely.

This policy did not merely remove individuals from public view. In many cases, victims were subjected to extreme torture, permanently disabling or maiming them. Death was rarely immediate or visible; instead, victims were kept suspended between life and death. Families did not know whether their loved ones were alive. Security forces knew—but denied it. Society gradually became accustomed to this uncertainty.

The most terrifying aspect of enforced disappearance is that it punishes not only the victim, but society as a whole. When one person disappears, their family becomes imprisoned in uncertainty. Parents, spouses, children, relatives—even neighbours—are forced to live without closure. This uncertainty is the political utility of disappearance: it generates fear, enforces silence, and crushes resistance. Through this mechanism, fascist governance sustains itself.

The objective of enforced disappearance under Hasina’s Awami nationalist state was not merely repression, but the long-term consolidation of fear. When the state kills someone, a body remains—evidence, a funeral, a grave, memory. But when someone is disappeared, there is no body, no evidence, no grave—only questions.

These questions haunt families for years: Is he alive? Where is he? Will he return? Wives ask themselves: Am I a widow or not?

Enforced disappearance was a deliberate operational strategy of the state security apparatus. On the one hand, it rendered political opponents physically invisible; on the other, it paralysed the legal system. Disappeared persons were not shown as arrested, were never produced before a court, and no cases were registered. As a result, constitutional protections, criminal procedure, and habeas corpus became meaningless. Law existed on paper, not in reality.

This system relied on a calculated mindset: “If we kill, there will be international criticism; if we disappear people, there will not.” Families searched police station after police station, hearing the same response: “We know nothing.” This ignorance was not accidental—it was deliberately cultivated.

Through this, an ecosystem of enforced disappearance was created, in which victims could not identify perpetrators and had no effective remedy. Our evidence will show that these disappearances occurred in the custody of security forces, under state authority, and with the knowledge of senior officials.

This Tribunal does not stand alone in confronting such crimes. International justice systems have repeatedly recognised how enforced disappearance destroys states from within—Argentina’s military dictatorship, Pinochet’s Chile, and Latin America’s “Dirty Wars” all relied on this method. Those states later acknowledged that enforced disappearance weakens not only victims, but national security itself. A force operating outside the law ultimately becomes a threat to the state.

The present case concerns one chapter of this extensive criminal narrative. It relates to 26 survivors who were forcibly disappeared between 2016 and 2024 and later returned alive from the Joint Interrogation Centre (JIC), operated under the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI).

Many others were detained at this facility; investigations remain ongoing. There are 13 accused in this case.

Among them are two individuals at the highest level of the state:

• • Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
  • Former Prime Minister’s Security and Defence Adviser, Tarique Ahmed Siddique

At the next level are five former Directors General of DGFI, holding Major General rank, who exercised overall control of the agency. Below them are five Directors of DGFI’s Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Bureau (CTIB), holding Brigadier General rank. The JIC operated under this CTIB.

Additionally, the final accused is a former Lieutenant Colonel who served in DGFI both during and after his official tenure on a contractual basis, possessing specialised expertise in enforced disappearance and torture.

Five charges have been framed against all 13 accused.

The legal framework governing enforced disappearance is derived from the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973, read together with the Rome Statute and customary international law. The Tribunal will also be guided by:

• • The UN Convention on Enforced Disappearance (2007)
  • The UN Declaration on Enforced Disappearance (1992)
  • Jurisprudence of the ICC, ICTY, ICTR
  • Human rights courts including the Inter-American and European Courts

The core evidentiary foundation consists of survivor testimony from those detained at the JIC and later released; testimony of family members; media reports; mobile location data; seizure lists; court filings; and documentary evidence tracing the timeline of disappearance and reappearance.

Government and independent investigative reports corroborate that these victims were detained and tortured by state forces. Criminal responsibility will be established through testimonial and documentary evidence.

The disappearance system was designed to eliminate evidence at every stage. Facilities, documents, and records were destroyed. In such circumstances—where evidence destruction is intrinsic to the crime—international jurisprudence recognises adapted evidentiary standards. The Prosecution will present relevant precedents to guide the Tribunal.

This trial is not merely about accountability for past crimes; it is a promise to the future. If enforced disappearance goes unpunished, fascist security forces learn that people can be erased without consequence. But if this Tribunal ensures justice, the state will learn that no authority—however powerful—may make people vanish.

Today, we are not only searching for the disappeared or consoling survivors. We are restoring the boundary of humanity that these crimes repeatedly violated. We seek accountability and responsibility so that enforced disappearance never again becomes possible in Bangladesh.