Fifteen army officers, accused in three separate cases of crimes against humanity, have been taken away from the International Crimes Tribunal.

The officers were placed in a prison van at around 10:00 am on Wednesday belonging to the jail authorities stationed on the tribunal premises. The green prison van later left the area.

Following the hearing at the tribunal, the defence lawyer for the 15 army officers, M. Sarwar Hossain, told reporters that his clients would be kept in a sub-jail (special detention facility).

The prison authorities will now review the sub-jail arrangements, the defence lawyer said.

Earlier, the officers, who were in the custody of the Bangladesh Army, were brought to the tribunal around 7:00am and produced before the ICT-1 amid tight security.

Members of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Rapid Action Battalion (Rab), and police were deployed in and around the court premises. They were transported in a green, air-conditioned special prison van.

The officers are: Maj Gen Sheikh Md Sarwar Hossen; Brigadier Generals Md Jahangir Alam, Tofayel Mostofa Sarwar, Md Qamrul Hasan, Md Mahbub Alam, Md Mahbubur Rahman Siddique and Ahmed Tanvir Majahar Siddique; Colonels Anowar Latif Khan, AKM Azad, Abdullah Al Momen and Md Sarwar Bin Kashem; Lieutenant Colonels Md Moshiur Rahman Jewel, Saiful Islam Sumon and Mohammad Redowanul Islam; and Major Rafat Bin Alam Moon.

The government had designated a building of the Military Engineer Services (MES) in Dhaka Cantonment as a temporary jail. According to a gazette notification issued by the home ministry on October 12, MES Building No 54, located north of Bashar Road, had been declared as a temporary jail under the provisions of the Prisoners Act, 1984.

FP/MI