Senior war crimes prosecutor Nicholas Koumjian is in Dhaka on behalf of the US’s war crimes ambassador-at-large, Steven Rapp, to ‘assess developments’ in the International Crimes Tribunal.

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The ICT was set up in March 2010 to enable the prosecution of those alleged to have committed international crimes during the 1971 War of Independence. On Monday Koumjian met Md Shahinur Islam, the registrar of the ICT, as well as the judges.

Islam told New Age that the prosecutor was undertaking a ‘needs assessment’ study of the ICT.

On Tuesday he meets with Abdul Hannan, head of the ICT’s investigation agency which is collecting evidence of alleged war crimes.

Hanan also told New Age that he understood Koumjian was involved in undertaking a ‘needs assessment.’

It is expected that Koumjian will meet the law minister, Shafique Ahmed, as well as members of the local defence team.

The US state department told New Age, ‘Nick Koumjian is in Dhaka to engage with the International Crimes Tribunal and other concerned parties to assess developments since the last visit of the US Ambassador-at-Large, Stephen Rapp, in May 2011.’

The war crime’s prosecutor’s visit to Dhaka comes just one month after the ICT amended its Rules of Procedure in light of comments made in a letter by Ambassador Rapp, which was sent to government ministers after his first visit in January.

In early July, following the publication of the amendments, the ICT’s registrar stated that the trials would now take place under ‘universally recognised standards’, though Human Rights Watch argued that the ICT’s legal regime continues to fail to bring ‘some areas of the law and rules into compliance with international standards’.

Rapp himself has made no comment about the adequacy of the amended procedural rules.

On 10 August the ICT is due to frame charges against Delwar Hossain Sayedee, the first of the seven men detained to face formal charges for international crimes.

Last Friday Toby Cadman, a British lawyer instructed by local lawyers to represent the five leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami accused of war crimes, was prevented from entering Bangladesh.

Prior to his involvement at the Special Court in Sierra Leone, Koumjian had been involved in war crimes prosecutions at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and at the war crimes tribunal in Cambodia.

This article was first published in the New Age newspaper published from Dhaka