Former Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdur Razzaq dies at 81

Barrister Abdur Razzaq, a Supreme Court lawyer and former assistant secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami who led the defence of 1971 war crimes convicts, has died at the age of 81.

His associate lawyer Shishir Monir, former secretary general of Islami Chhatra Shibir, confirmed his passing to bdnews24.com on Sunday.

He said, "My senior Barrister Abdur Razzaq passed away at 4:10pm at Ibn Sina Hospital in Dhanmondi.”

The octogenarian had been suffering from cancer. As his condition deteriorated, he was admitted to hospital on Apr 21. He died there.

Shishir said Razzaq's funeral prayers will be held at Dhanmondi’s Taqwa mosque at 8:30pm and at the Supreme Court premises at 11pm on Monday.

Razzaq, who studied law in London, returned home in 1986 and enrolled as an advocate. He then got involved in Jamaat politics.

However, the barrister’s name came into the limelight as a lawyer after the BNP-Jamaat alliance came to power in 2001. When the war crimes trial of Jamaat's top leaders began at the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in 2010, Razzaq stood in the court as their chief lawyer.

Five days after the 2013 execution of Abdul Quader Molla, the assistant secretary general of Jamaat left Dhaka. The lawyer, who also holds British citizenship, sent his letter of resignation to the party in February 2019.

There he wrote about two things as the reason for leaving Jamaat.

“Jamaat did not apologise to the country’s people for opposing the independence of Bangladesh in 1971 and could not reform itself in the light of the realities of the 21st century and the political changes in other Muslim-majority countries."

Then on May 3, 2021, Razzaq was officially announced as the chief advisor to the Amar Bangladesh Party (AB Party) on its first founding anniversary.

A group of "dissenting" leaders and activists over the role of Jamaat in 1971 also left the party in 2019 and first formed a platform called "Jono Akankhar Bangladesh” (People's Aspiration for Bangladesh). Later, they formed the AB Party on May 2, 2020.

Barrister Razzaq also resigned from the AB Party on Aug 17, 2024, following the shift in the country’s political landscape in the wake of the mass uprising.

After 11 long years, he returned home from the UK on Dec 26, 2024, and became regular in his legal profession at the Supreme Court.

Born in Sylhet’s Beanibazar Upazila in 1944, he received a law degree from UK’s Lincoln's Inn in 1980.

He practised law in London until November 1985. He returned to Bangladesh in 1986 and enrolled as a lawyer.

In 1990, he founded a law firm called The Law Counsel. He became a senior advocate of the Supreme Court’s Appellate Division in 2002.

He is survived by two sons and a daughter. Both of his sons are lawyers.