UK lawyer Toby Cadman meets CA with advice on govt's legal imperatives

Toby Cadman, an international human rights lawyer who was once barred from entering Bangladesh, has met Chief Adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus to discuss the need to establish a domestic tribunal with international support to try people accused of committing crimes against humanity during the student-led revolution.

The meeting was held at the State Guest House Jamuna in Dhaka today (2 September), Chief adviser's Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam told The Business Standard.

Cadman, extradition specialist and the joint head of the London-based law firm The Guernica 37, said Bangladesh quickly needs to establish an effective domestic legal framework for truth, justice, and accountability that was properly supported by the international community and endorsed by the people of Bangladesh.

In presenting a number of proposals to the chief adviser, he said they were ready to support Bangladesh in an effort to develop a framework for the extradition of persons involved in crimes against humanity, economic crimes, and political corruption who fled the country with their ill-gotten assets.

The chief adviser heard his proposals and asked him to make a written submission. He said his government is committed to holding internationally acceptable trials of the people who ordered and carried out the massacre during the student-led revolution.

Dr Yunus said one of the top priorities of the interim government is to bring back billions of dollars laundered during Sheikh Hasina's 15-year-long autocratic regime.

Toby Cadman was Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami's legal advisor in London in 2011, after the trials of several top Jamaat leaders started – over war crimes committed during the 1971 Liberation War.

Toby Cadman was also part of the team that asked the United States government for sanction against Bangladesh's Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).