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Hurdles that delayed trial

Staff Correspondent
The war crimes case against Delawar Hossain Sayedee was the first of nine such cases pending with or disposed of by the international crimes tribunals and could be the first to see the verdict.
It did not happen as the case went through rocks on several issues in last 18 months of trial until the verdict was delivered yesterday.
A flurry of defence petitions at almost every stage of the trial, extensive cross-examination of the investigation officer, adjournment pleas from both the prosecution and the defence, and finally reconstitution of the tribunals following a Skype controversy largely contributed to the lengthy proceedings.
As the first case it had to face a number of new issues as well. The case saw disposal of the defence's petitions for appointing foreign lawyers and recusal [voluntary
absence from trial] of former chairman of the tribunal Justice Md Nizamul Huq, and the prosecution's plea to allow their witnesses' statements given to the investigators as evidence.
War crimes convict Sayedee was arrested on June 29, 2010 in a case filed for hurting religious sentiment of the Muslims. He was shown arrested on November 2,2010 in the war crimes case for committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971.
Investigation into his crimes began on July 21 the same year.
The International Crimes Tribunal on August 4 heard a complaint case (information obtained by an investigation agency) from the prosecution that alleged Sayedee committed war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and peace during the war.
On November 2, the prosecution prayed to the tribunal to issue warrant of arrest against the Jamaat-e-Islami leader for the sake of fair investigation. On the other side, the defence in their petition countered the prosecution's prayer. Hearing both the side's submission, the tribunal directed the prison authorities to keep Sayedee detained in prison for the sake of fair probe.
After 313 days of investigation, the prosecution submitted a 4,074-page report to the tribunal on May 31, 2011. The prosecution pressed charges including committing genocide and rape against Sayedee on July 11. Three days later, the tribunal took the charges into cognisance.
On October 3, the tribunal framed 20 specific charges against the convict for committing genocide and crimes against humanity.
After charge framing, the defence tried to delay the beginning of the proceeding by filing several applications.
Questioning neutrality of former chairman of the Tribunal-1 Justice Huq, Sayedee on October 27 filed a petition seeking his recusal. After thorough hearing, the tribunal rejected the petition on November 14.
In early 2011, Sayedee had filed another petition with the Tribunal-1 to appoint three British legal experts --Steven Kay QC, Toby Cadman and John Cammegh — as his advisers to defend him. After hearing their petition the tribunal sent the matter to the Bar Council for approval. The petition was rejected at the Bar Council.
The trial finally began to roll on November 20, 2011 with the prosecution reading out the opening statement. Chief Prosecutor Ghulam Arieff Tipoo and senior prosecutor Syed Rezaur Rahman read out the 88-page statement against Sayedee on two consecutive days.
The prosecution produced their first witness on December 7. As many as 28 witnesses including the investigation officer gave deposition and were cross-examined for nine months.
The tribunal also accepted statements of 15 prosecution witnesses, given to an investigation officer, as evidence against the convict. The defence filed petitions several times praying to the Tribunal-1 not to accept those statements as evidence. But their petitions were rejected.
A few months later, the defence came up with another petition alleging that the absentee witnesses were kept at a safe house and
prayed to discard the evidence. The tribunal rejected their prayer on authentication ground of the allegation.
On September 2,2012, the defence produced their first witness. The tribunal-1 took deposition of 17 out of 20 defence witnesses as the defence failed to produce the rest. The tribunal fixed November 5 for the closing argument.
After a month-long extensive argument placed by both the prosecution and the defence, the tribunal on December 6 last year closed the proceedings keeping the case waiting for verdict.
However, against the back-drop of the tribunal's former chief Justice Md Nizamul Huq's resignation amid Skype controversy, both the defence and the prosecution got an opportunity to place sum-up of their closing arguments once again.
Amid the controversy, Justice Huq quit and the tribunal was reconstituted with Justice ATM Fazle Kabir at its helm.
When the reconstituted tribunal resumed proceedings on December 17, the defence began piling petitions. Leaders of Jamaat also filed a petition for restarting the case.
The tribunal rejected the prayer but decided to rehear argument in the case. Once the closed case began, the defence started submitting petitions, which had already been rejected.
These petitions killed some time of the tribunal.
Though the Tribunal-1 fixed two days for the prosecution and three days for the defence on January 13-17 for completing sum-up of their closing arguments, it ended on January 29.
Since that day the tribunal kept the case waiting for verdict until yesterday.