In Bangladesh, the International Crimes Tribunal set up to try war criminals issued arrest warrants on Monday against four Jamaat-e-Islami leaders including its chief Matiur Rahman Nizami on charges of committing war crimes in 1971. The three-member tribunal headed by Justice Nizamul Huq at its first sitting after being set up in March this year issued the warrants after hearing a prosecution petition Monday morning seeking to arrest the Jamaat leaders s in a war crime case for committing genocide, murder, rape, torture, loot, and arson during the Liberation War of 1971. Other than the Jamaat Chief, the three others who are involved in the case are the Jamaat-e Islami’s Secretary General Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojahid and two senior assistant secretaries general Muhammad Kamaruzzaman and Abdul Quader Mollah. All the four leaders are already in detention after being arrested in several other cases including one of sedition. Chief Prosecutor Golam Arif Tipu described the beginning of the proceedings of International Crimes Tribunal as historic. This is the first time in the history of the Bangladesh judiciary that arrest warrants have been issued against the suspected war criminals under the International Crimes Tribunal Act, 1973. The tribunal has fixed August 2nd as the next day of hearing.