Attorney General (AG) Asaduzzaman said on Sunday that the people want maximum punishment through legal framework in the crimes against humanity case against Sheikh Hasina, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun.
He made these remarks while addressing the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT)-1 before the submission of an opening statement in the case.
"It's no doubt a historic moment. We came here before you for justice. We want maximum punishment through legal framework, through legal process," he said.
"Many autocrats were born in the world at different times. We saw people like Hitler, Mussolini and Pinochet. We read the story about English statesman, politician and military commander Oliver Cromwell. Because of his tyrannical activities, agitated people exhumed his body from his grave and hanged at Tyburn, London, on 30 January 1661. His head was cut off and displayed on the roof of Westminster Hall. It remained there until at least 1684," he added.
"We are not that ruthless, we don't want to dig up anyone's body from the grave, and we don't want to hang any dead body or cut off his head. But we want maximum punishment through legal process and that is why we are here today," the attorney general said.
He further said the people of the country have seen killings, enforced disappearances, extortions, night-time voting, plundering of state properties and creating mountains of wealth in foreign countries in the name of the spirit of Liberation War.
"We saw Awami misrule from 1972 to 1975. But a question has arisen now, who was the bigger killer, that person, who was in power at the time, or that person, who was in power from 2009 to 2024? We saw an autocrat flee the country. The dictator has not fled the country alone, all her parliamentarians, all the members of cabinet fled the country," he said.
Without naming Sheikh Hasina, the attorney general said if there was any association of autocrats, she could have been its president, adding "If Goebbels wanted to take lessons in lying, do PHD in falsehood, Sheikh Hasina Wazed could have been his teacher."
"We have come with an oath to the blood of Mugdho, Abu Sayeed. We demand justice, we demand maximum punishment, but through legal process," he concluded.
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