From Mr W. T. Williams, QC. Labour and Cooperative MP for Warrington
Sir, I have read with great concern that it is proposed to bring Shaikh Mujibur Rahman to secret trial for treason, following President Yahya Khan's statement that “he is to be punished for his crimes” and that evidence is to be adduced also from his former trial in 1969.

It happens that I appeared for Mujib's defence both in the tribunal specially set up for his former trial and before the Supreme Court in Dacca.

In the tribunal I had reason to protest against the admission of evidence, obtained from witnesses who had obviously been cruelly tortured, and which evidence they attempted once in court to withdraw.

At the Supreme Court, judgment was given against the Government on the grounds that the whole tribunal procedure was ultra vires the constitution, but the Government ignored the judgment and the trial proceeded until it was eventually terminated by the riots which ended with the overthrow of Ayub Khan.

Now this trial—in secret and with none but Pakistan lawyers allowed for his defence—is to be regarded apparently as a continuance of a trial declared already by the Supreme Court to have been illegal. No Bengali lawyer would defend Mujib except in danger of life or limb. It will take a Bengali lawyer of exceptional integrity and courage to do so, without fee or favour.

How, in all the circumstances of the case, can this man expect a just trial? Yet, if it ends in his condemnation and execution, there can be no doubt that it will increase a hundredfold the hatred and bitterness between East and West Pakistan—with incalculable danger to the peace of the world.

I write to express the hope that the British Government and the United Nations will not fail to express vital concern in this matter and that they will yet find ways to prevent a situation so unjust in itself becoming a casus belli fraught with peril for us all.

Yours faithfully,
W. T. WILLIAMS.
House of Commons.
August 11.


From Mr Peter Shore, Labour MP for Stepney
Sir, The letter you published today from Bernard Sheridan ard Company is dismaying. That the Prime Minister designate of a country, within months of winning an overwhelming electoral victory, should be tried for treason is in itself a profoundly shocking event; that the trial should be conducted in camera and the Shaikh refused access to his own legal advisers makes a mockery of Pakistani justice.

But worse still, is the evidence that the Shaikh’s trial provides of the rejection by the Pakistan President of even the possibility of a political solution to the crisis in East Bengal and of his apparent indifference to the mounting threat of armed conflict in the area.

Can we hope, even at this stage, that some consideration of self-interest, if not of reason and humanity, will enter and change the mind of Pakistan’s rulers?

Yours sincerely.
PETER SHORE,
House of Commons.
August 11.