The continued detention of Dr Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, power, energy and mineral resources adviser to former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, on allegations of crimes against humanity during the July 2024 protests shows how the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) has become as much an instrument of political retribution as a forum for criminal justice.
Which of these two roles predominates remains an open question. But there are now numerous cases in which ICT prosecutors, with the Tribunal's approval, have pursued the detention and prosecution of defendants on grounds that can only be described as political. And Chowdhury’s case is one of them
Chowdhury, a decorated freedom fighter in the 1971 Liberation War, had a close personal relationship with Sheikh Hasina but never formally joined the Awami League. Energy specialists say that throughout his time as her adviser he stayed focused on the power and energy portfolio and largely kept out of wider political affairs.
There has never been any evidence that he was part of a chain of command linked to the July 2024 killings. Even so, in September 2024, aged 79, he was arrested at his home in connection with the "murder" of Sumon Sikdar. Five weeks later, in October 2024, he was shown arrested in a “crimes against humanity” case before the Tribunal.
A prosecution note on the ICT allegations against him, which he received weeks after his arrest, contained two serious factual errors. The first claimed that Chowdhury had "referred to the protesting students and people as the 'ghosts of anti-liberation forces.'"
The second claimed that he had attended a meeting with "leaders of the 14-party alliance" at which it was decided both to impose a nationwide curfew and "to open fire on students and the public during the curfew." Neither was true.
Nor did the note even mention Sumon Sikdar, the killing Chowdhury was originally accused of being complicit in. That omission raises its own questions about why he was detained for murder in the first place.
These errors alone – which the ICT never considered - should have led the Tribunal to question the legitimacy of his arrest and, at the very least, to grant him bail. Instead, it has kept him in detention for 23 months.
The Tribunal's own rules are supposed to prevent exactly this. Rule 9(5) of the ICT Rules of Procedure only allows an accused person to be held for more than a year without a completed investigation in "exceptional circumstances," which the judges must record in writing.
Yet, in Chowdhury’ case, once that year had passed, prosecutors never told the judges what exceptional circumstances justified keeping Chowdhury in detention, and the judges never asked.
When Chowdhury applied for bail in April 2026, more than a year and a half into his detention, prosecutors told the court they needed more time to investigate. The Tribunal neither granted bail nor recorded any exceptional circumstances for refusing it. It simply adjourned the case for three months. In July, 21 months into his detention, it adjourned again until August, and then once more until September.
How can the Tribunal get away with a failure to apply its own rules? Because the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act 1973 does not allow any other court to review any pre-conviction decisions, including a refusal to provide bail, a failure to apply Rule 9(5), or indeed any other decision relating to charging.
No other criminal court in Bangladesh makes detention or charging decisions that are beyond the reach of the High Court. That alone makes the ICT unaccountable in a way no other part of the country's criminal justice system is.
In September 2026, 23 months into Chowdhury's detention and 11 months after the one-year limit in Rule 9(5) had passed, prosecutors told the Tribunal that investigators had completed their investigation, and asked for a further two month adjournment. By the time the Tribunal resumes in November, Chowdhury will have been detained for more than two years.
I will stick my neck out. If prosecutors bring a formal charge against Chowdhury in November, it will be evidentially unfounded, and built on a misunderstanding and misapplication of the offence of crime against humanity. It will be little different from the baseless charges brought against the journalists Mozammel Babu and Farzana Rupa, as well as a number of others, who now face nothing more at the ICT than political retribution.
For the prosecutors, such a charge would serve two purposes. The first is to justify, after the fact, two years of detention that the Tribunal has never been willing to explain. The second is to punish Chowdhury for his closeness to Sheikh Hasina. Neither is a lawful basis for prosecution under Bangladesh's law or its constitution – but this now is increasingly the reason behind many prosecution decisions.
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David Bergman is a journalist. He divides his time between London and Dhaka