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Petitions pile on Tribunal-1

War crimes prosecution sees it as a delaying tactic of defence

Mahbubur Rahman Khan
The International Crimes Tribunal-2 was formed two years after the Tribunal-1 came into being, but it has delivered the first verdict as the Tribunal-1 remains bogged down by a flurry of defence petitions, which some say is a delaying tactic.
Many believe the Tribunal-1 should have been the first to deliver a verdict, on Jamaat Nayeb-e-Ameer Delawar Hossain Sayedee whose case is awaiting a verdict, but it was not to be.
Proceedings of the cases at the Tribunal-1 have all but stalled since December when its chief Justice Nizamul Huq quit.
Since then, absence of the defence counsels and the torrent of petitions have not let the IYibunal-1 make headway in the four high-profile cases it is dealing
with.
On December 6, 2012, the hacking of then Tribunal-1 chairman Justice Nizamul Huq's Skype and email accounts came to light and his alleged conversation with an overseas legal expert was published by a Bangla daily.
The defence counsels then started skipping the Tribunal-1 proceedings.
Amid controversy, Justice Huq quit and the tribunal was reconstituted with Justice ATM Fazle Kabir at the helm.
When the tribunal resumed proceedings on December 17 last year, the defence began piling petitions.
Since then, the defence has submitted at least 21 petitions on retrial of three cases, removal of a prosecutor, contempt against the law minister, about the role of the judges and on other issues.
The petitions ate up the court's time, which the prosecution sees as a delaying tactic, but the defence lawyers said they were preparing to file even more petitions with Tribunal-1 to ensure justice for their clients.
The Tribunal-1 is dealing with the war crimes charges against former Jamaat-e-Islami chief Ghulam Azam, Jamaat's Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami and Nayeb-e-Ameer Delawar Hossain Sayedee, and BNP lawmaker Salauddin Quader Chowdhury.
Until December 6 last year, the testimony recording of the first defence witness in Ghulam Azam's case was pending while deposition and cross-examination of the first prosecution witness in Nizami’s case had been recorded.
THal proceedings against Sayedee were complete pending verdict, and testi-mony and cross-examination of 17 witnesses in SQ Chowdhury's case were done with.
But after December 6, Ghulam Azam's case saw little progress. The first defence witness is yet to complete testifying. The witness gave a two-day deposition on defence documents on January 8 and 9.
The defence filed a petition to include more documents and the tribunal allowed it, which means the witness would continue testifying for quite a while.
Nizami was indicted on May 28 last year with 16 charges of crimes against humanity during the Liberation War. The tribunal recorded deposition of the second prosecution witness on December 18, but his cross-examination is yet to
begin.
SQ Chowdhury's case is stalled at where it was on December 6. Prosecution had produced the 18th witness on December 17 but nothing significant happened as the defence lawyers did not show up.
Chowdhury's counsel Fakhrul Islam said they would file more petitions with the tribunal on different issues as these issues came up after the alleged Skype conversation between the former Tribunal-1 chairman and the expatriate legal expert.
One of the petitions could seek recall of al l orders passed by the former Tribunal-1 chairman, he claimed.
On Sunday, the BNP leader's counsels filed a contempt of court petition with the tribunal against expatriate legal expert Ahmed Ziauddin.
On December 23 and 24, the defence filed three petitions for retrial of the warcrimes accused Jamaat leaders. After hearing their submissions for a week, the tribunal rejected the petitions on January3.
The tribunal allowed the defence and the prosecution to place the closing arguments of Sayedee's case again on January 13-17. It could not hear the arguments all week, apart from on two days, as it was busy hearing submissions of review petition and prosecutor-removal petition.
The prosecution on Thursday once again sought capital punishment for Sayedee after completing arguments. The defence is now placing their closing arguments once again.
Contacted over the phone, defence counsel Mizanul Islam claimed that they were filing these petitions as per law. He dismissed the prose-
cution claim that they were delaying the trial. He also said they were yet to decide on filing more petitions.
Prosecutor Syed Haidar Ali said the defence files unnecessary petitions. “They file petitions which have no connection with the law (International Crimes Tribunal Act, 1973]. Some of their petitions are even contradictory."
Prosecutor Sultan Mahmud Simon, however, is optimistic. He said he is very hopeful that the proceedings of cases pending with the Tribunal-1 would gather momentum again this week.