Nobel Prize cannot absolve a man from legal punishment if he commits an offence. There are instances galore in which even the Nobel laureates have been brought to book for crime they committed.
It’s no secret that the Nobel Prize has a strong Western political influence. The Nobel Prize committee doesn’t bother even considering a person for the prize if his thinking or ideology does not match with theirs. In fact, the Nobel Prize, especially in Peace and in Literature, has become an instrument for implementing Western purposes across the world, opines many an expert.
Despite controversies, the Nobel Prize gives a person global fame and fortune besides unfailing support of the Western countries. Nonetheless, the Nobel Prize does not give one the right to ignore the law of the land with impunity.
Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski, a diehard dissident of President Alexander Lukashenko, was arrested in 2021 for his alleged involvement in smuggling out cash to Belarus to fund opposition activities. Since the Belarusian President is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Europe and America put a huge support on Ales Bialiatski. In 2022, Bialiatski was conferred the Nobel Peace Prize, and the leaders and noted persons of Western countries issued numerous statements for his release from jail. But Belarusian court denied him bail and sentenced him to 10 years in prison in March this year.
The two-year jail sentence for renowned US scientist and a Nobel prize winner John Robert Schrieffer (1931-2019) can be an ideal example that Nobel Prize does not mean an indemnity against an offence. Schrieffer won the Nobel Prize in Physics at the age of 41, in 1972, for his very important contribution in developing the first successful quantum theory of superconductivity.
As a young scientist and scholar, he earned fame among the learned people across the USA long before his winning the Nobel Prize. Schrieffer was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, two prestigious learned societies of the USA, before he was awarded the Nobel Prize. In 1975, after three years of his winning the Nobel Prize, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society, the oldest and most prestigious learned society of the USA. He worked as an eminent university professor at different universities and was appointed chief scientist of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.
These unique achievements of his tell that he was a very much respected person in his country. In September 24, 2004, at the age of 73, Schrieffer was involved in a car accident which killed one person and injured several people. He was sentenced to two years in prison in 2005 for vehicular manslaughter.
Schrieffer, the renowned American scientist and Nobel laureate could not escape punishment for his unintended offence while an ex-President, ex-foreign minister and several Nobel Prize winners of the same country issued statement for suspending the ongoing trial process against Dr Yunus, is really a big surprise for Bangladesh.
With wide criticism about the high rate of interest and the cruel ways to get repayment of loan was tantamount to Shylock’s proverbial ‘pound of flesh’ by Dr Yunus’ Grameen Bank. Even Nobel Peace Prize could not make him a respected and accepted personality in Bangladesh. It is his wicked mind that did not let him become a hero, and he became a villain instead.
Dr Yunus’ involvement in ‘minus two’ conspiracy and his high ambition to become a totalitarian head of the state of Bangladesh was not only an open secret, rather it was crystal clear to all. An evil mind is prone to doing evil things, and so the allegations against him of fund embezzling, irregularities, not paying the workers dues etc. cannot go unchallenged. After all, a Nobel Prize does not mean indemnity against offences and crimes.