The three judges of International Crimes Tribunal-1 on Saturday stepped inside one of Bangladesh’s most notorious alleged secret detention centres — a dark, crumbling facility concealed within the Rapid Action Battalion-1 headquarters in Uttara — as part of proceedings in cases over enforced disappearances.

Escorted by chief prosecutor Md Aminul Islam, other prosecutors and members of the defence representing detained former RAB officers, the tribunal inspected the two-storey structure, whose narrow corridors are lined with a series of interconnected cells.

Inside, the judges walked through dim, airless concrete chambers where alleged victims had testified that they were held in complete isolation for days, months and, in some cases, years.

Some of the smallest cells had been built beneath staircases, spaces so confined and secluded, that former detainees described them as ‘death cells’— places where they feared they would never emerge alive.

Several cases involving alleged enforced disappearances are currently pending before the tribunal, headed by Justice Md Golam Mortuza Mozumder, with Justice Md Shofiul Alam Mahmood and retired district judge Md Mohitul Haque Anam Chawdhury as the other members.