Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, the legal beagles and questions

A peculiar story of the man who until short time ago was serving the British Crown and the British citizens in the exalted post of the Director of Muslim spiritual care provision in the NHS as well as the chair of the Multi-Faith Group for Healthcare Chaplaincy (whatever it means), just started to unfold. Which makes the unfolding process too late by many years, if the charges against the man are to be believed.

The war crimes tribunal on Monday set July 15 to begin trial in absentia against Ashrafuzzaman Khan and Chowdhury Mueen Uddin – two absconding Al-Badr leaders – for their alleged involvement in killing prominent intellectuals of the country in the Liberation War of 1971.

The International Crimes Tribunal 2 indicted the duo and brought 11 counts of crimes against humanity in 1971.

The prosecution, however, had brought 16 charges against the two under the section 3(2) of the Act, which deals with crimes against humanity and peace, genocide and rape.

The man is adamant in his insistence that he has nothing to do with the charges, employing, as you can see from this example, fine British legal minds and the draconian British libel laws against any claim of his (alleged) bloody past. However, until very recently he was still a senior employee of NHS, his fishy role in the British Muslim community (detailed in this article) notwithstanding.

I can't have an opinion about the ongoing legal strife. There is always the presumption of innocence, of course, then there is a lengthy process of the trial - that, most probably, wouldn't even start due to UK inflexible habit of no extradition to the countries that have death penalty.

Anyway, we could wait some. There is something else that shouldn't wait that long. It is an answer to a question to be asked after reading this:

Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin got the infamy because of high level exposure brought out by a lone UK TV documentary. On May 3, 1995, UK's Channel Four Television broadcast a documentary titled "The War Crimes File." Produced by Twenty Twenty Television of London, this documentary provided exclusive evidence on the criminal past of three former Bangladesh citizens who became prominent British Muslim Fundamentalists.

The documentary presented vivid eyewitness testimonies of these men, all of whom had lived in Britain for around 20 years, in organized assassination and massacres during the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war against Pakistani military regime. All three moved to England shortly after the war and each had become a leading figure in Bangladeshi community and were actively involved in fundamentalist politics.

1995, then, is the year when the story of the man's murderous past (alleged or not) surfaced in UK. So, all these years no one has checked the "allegations"?

As for the chances to see the justice in this case carried out:

Mr Mueen-Uddin said he wants to prove his innocence but does not have confidence in the tribunal.

Which, translated into a simple language, means that he will fight the extradition to his last breath. And to the considerable abilities of his legal beagles.

Too bad.