WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL
US envoy expresses concern over process
Stephen Rapp
US Ambassador at-large of Global Criminal Justice Stephen Rapp has expressed satisfaction over the progress which has been made in the war crimes trial, but he has the concern as the process has not fully maintained international standard.
“Though there have been improvements and progress, I still have concern about the process and further improvement could help ensure that the international standards are met,” he said at a press conference at American Centre on Wednesday.
Warping up his two-day visit to Bangladesh, Rapp identified four concerns and stressed for maintaining those properly so that people can say they got judgment right.
The four concerns are: 1) following of international standard, 2) change of law during the trial process, 3) burden of proof and 4) ensuring equal rights for producing witnesses before the court by both the prosecutors and defence.
He strongly recommended that international law should be followed in the trial process. “It needs to a fair process so that it will stand the test of time.
In response to a question, the US official said trial is going to continue whatever happens in this election. “It’s my expectation it would continue. This is a process. It should be done in such a way that it’s not a question which party is in power but a question of establishing justice,” he added
About the four verdicts given by the ITC recently, Rapp said “fundamentally, I think, progress has been achieved…the set of recommendations that I made were incorporated. But I’m very concerned about the death penalty.”
“I think many people want to see death penalty because to severity of overall crimes. But there should be individualized determination what the proof was as to particular person, what the role was of that individual, how cruel it was, what they did, and whether those justifies the death sentence,” he said.
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