Former RAB intelligence chief Lieutenant Colonel Ziaul Ahsan personally planned and directed a series of so-called ‘Golf operations’, including alleged staged encounters and killings, a former RAB officer testified before International Crimes Tribunal-1 on Thursday.
Retired Major Sabbir Ahmed Osmani, who served as deputy commander of RAB-8 in Barishal from October 2009 before taking voluntary retirement in 2014, gave his testimony as the 13th prosecution witness in the crimes against humanity case against Ziaul.
Sabbir said he had witnessed around 15 to 20 such operations in the Barishal region.
He identified Ziaul, who was present in the dock, as ‘Zia sir’. Ziaul is facing at least 23 cases, mostly involving allegations of crimes against humanity.
The witness said the operations followed a particular pattern and that, except for Ziaul, no one knew the identities of the detainees.
The detainees were transported in a way that prevented their identification, he said. ‘They were kept barefoot,’ Sabbir said.
Black caps, cement sacks, ropes and other materials used in the operations were often prepared by intelligence personnel from RAB headquarters attached to the battalion, he said.
Sabbir also described an operation in which a detained man was allegedly taken to a remote coastal waterway, shot on a trawler and had his abdomen cut open before his body was dumped into the water with cement-filled sacks tied to it.
Two to three days later, a mutilated body surfaced in the Baleshwar River in the Sharankhola range, he said.
Sabbir later learned from intelligence sources that DNA testing had identified the body as that of BDR member Nazrul Islam, who had fled Dhaka after the BDR carnage.
Sabbir said he witnessed three operations in the Sundarbans during his RAB service and that Ziaul planned and directed them.
Describing the Nishankhali operation in November 2011, Sabbir said RAB, the Coast Guard and the Forest Department conducted a raid on a suspected hideout of forest robber Raju’s gang.
Ziaul ordered RAB personnel to open fire into the forest after an intelligence team gave a signal, he said.
Two bodies were recovered after the firing, but six bodies were later shown as casualties of the operation, Sabbir said.
He said an investigation found that four other bodies had allegedly been brought to the scene earlier by intelligence personnel and that the four people had been shot dead on Ziaul’s orders.
Ziaul and several RAB headquarters intelligence personnel took part in the operation, he said. RAB’s legal and media wing director Commander Sohail and several journalists also attended it.
Sabbir said the activities he witnessed caused him severe psychological distress, prompting him to seek voluntary retirement after 18 years of service.
