Mojaheed hints at apology, defends role............

A senior Jamaat leader has rejected 1971 war crimes charges against the party, saying a political party cannot be criminally charged for its political stance.

"This (opposing the independence of Bangladesh) was a matter of a political decision," secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed said in a TV interview Saturday.

"This cannot be treated as a war crime," Mojaheed, who served as a cabinet minister in the BNP-led 2001-06 coalition government, told Channel One.

"None of us were involved in activities that are defined as war crimes," the Jamaat leader said.

Mojaheed hinted that a formal public apology for the party's 1971 role was likely, however.

"We have made (apologetic) statements on various occasions before," he said.

"If necessary, if we feel it necessary that we need to speak again, come up with a clearer statement, we will give one."

The Jamaat leader put stress on the phrase—"if we feel it necessary", and repeated it.

He said: "The political decision could have been wrong, but there was nothing criminal about it.

"And it was not just us, Jamaat-e-Islami that opposed (the liberation war), others did too. The Muslim League did," said Mojaheed, clearly on the defensive.