Passport records cast doubt on ICT charges against Awami League politicians

The International Crimes Tribunal is set next week to start the trial of two Awami League politicians charged with involvement in the murders of protesters in Chittagong city centre during the student protests in July 2024, despite passport records showing they were both outside Bangladesh on the dates the killings took place.

In the charge-framing order issued by the Tribunal judges on June 30, 2026, Awami League councillor Shaibal Das Sumon, from the city centre ward of Jamal Khan, is charged alongside eleven other men with having "intentionally opened fire" on student protesters and unarmed civilians, killing Wasim Akram, Foysal Ahmed Shanto and Md Faruk on July 16 2024. It is claimed that he was present, armed and shooting.

Yet Sumon's passport records show he left the country on July 5, entering the United States on July 6, and did not return to Bangladesh until July 22. Airplane ticket records also confirm the details of his return trip from Dhaka to JFK airport in New York on Turkish Airlines.

“I had absolutely no presence or involvement near the locations where the incidents leading to these International Crimes Tribunal criminal cases allegedly took place,” Sumon told Daily Waadaa. “This is because I was staying in the United States for business reasons from July 5, 2024, until July 22, 2024. I returned to Chittagong after July 22, 2024.”

Md Mohiuddin Bachchu, the former Awami League MP for one of the Chittagong city constituencies, is also charged in the same case for involvement in killings not just on July 16, but also on July 18, when three additional men, Tanvir Siddiqui, Saimon and Ridoy Chondro Torua, died from gunshot wounds.

However, the former MP’s passport proves that he left the country on July 13, returning only on July 25, 2024.

Unlike Sumon, however, Bachchu is not alleged to have actually shot any of the six men on the two dates, but instead to have ordered and instigated these shootings. Whilst it may be feasible that Bachchu could have been complicit from outside the country, connecting him with offences on these two days would have required, at the very least, phone records – or witness statements – showing that whilst he was abroad, he was in contact with others involved in these shootings.

However, defence lawyers involved in the case have confirmed that ICT prosecutors have not submitted as evidence any Call Detail Records, known as CDRs, belonging to Bachchu or any of the other accused, raising questions about the evidential basis of the charges against him on July 16 and July 18. The prosecution has also not provided any witness statements corroborating that he was in contact with others involved in these shootings.

The Chittagong trial

Sumon and Bachchu are amongst the 22 Awami League politicians and activists on trial for crimes against humanity, including murder and "other inhumane" acts, in connection with events in the city on July 16 and July 18 and August 4, 2024, during the student protests.

The defendants fall into two groups. The first comprises six senior Chittagong party leaders – including Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury Nowfel, the education minister at the time of the protests, Dr Mohammad Hasan Mahmud Chowdhury, a central committee member, and Mohiuddin Bachchu himself – who are alleged to have ordered and instigated the shooting of unarmed civilians.

The second category comprises 16 party cadres, including Sumon, who are charged with carrying out the killings themselves.

This case has already faced controversy over the influential role played by the organisation Muniriya Jubo Tabligh in pressuring investigators and prosecutors to pursue the case. The group has a known enmity toward one of the accused former members of parliament, Faisal Karim, in whose constituency the group is based. In December 2025, one of the group’s leaders threatened to “blow up [the] Tribunal” if Karim was released.

A prosecutor on the case has also resigned, after recordings exposed that he had offered to arrange bail for Karim in exchange for 1 crore taka. And more recently Human Rights Watch has also revealed that certain incriminating passages within witness statements taken by ICT investigation officers were duplicated almost word for word in as many as 13 other statements.

The falsity of the allegation against Sumon concerning his alleged involvement in the killing on July 16 raises particular concern about the integrity of the witness statements that stated he was present.

In one of the statements taken by the investigation officer, number 25, Sumon is accused, along with nine other defendants, of being "positioned around the railway station with firearms" on July 16 and of having “began firing towards” the witness and others.

And in another statement, number 9, Sumon is accused, along with six other men, of having “domestic and foreign weapons, ram dao, steel pipes, hockey sticks and sticks in their hands” and that “between approximately 3:30 pm and 4:30 pm”, at Muradpur intersection in Chattogram, he “fired on the protesting students and members of the public”, resulting in the deaths of three men.

However, the passport records show that these claims of the two witnesses – both of whom are part of the Muniriya Jubo Tabligh group – are false, raising questions about the credibility of the rest of the men’s statements, and more generally about the credibility of eyewitness testimony without corroborating video or photographic evidence.

This revelation also lays bare the structural flaws of in absentia trials, in which the tribunal appoints defence lawyers on behalf of the accused, but where they have no contact with each other. As a result, prosecutions can proceed to trial on the basis of totally inaccurate witness testimony.

The ICT prosecutor in charge of the case, Mr Zahirul Amin, has not responded to a request to comment on Sumon’s absence from Bangladesh on these two days, and the implications for the case. Sumon’s court-appointed lawyer has said that he had become aware through a recent local news report that Sumon was absent from the country.

August 4, 2024

Though Sumon and Bachchu were absent from Bangladesh on the dates of the six killings – for which they are both charged with murder as a crime against humanity – they were present in Bangladesh on August 4, when they were accused of committing "other inhumane acts" as a crime against humanity.

Sumon acknowledged to Waadaa that he was present that day on the streets of Chittagong city, and confirmed that he is the person pictured in a photograph standing next to a man carrying a gun. However, he said this was at Kazi Dewary, near the stadium, and not in the areas where the violence was worst.

"There were no occurrences, no bloodshed [where I was located]," he claims.

It has not been possible to contact Bachchu.

The ICT trials have come under increasing criticism in recent months, as more focus has been directed at unfair legal procedures, and trial judgements which fail to apply the definition of offences set out in international criminal law.

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David Bergman is a journalist. He divides his time between London and Dhaka