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Same old SQ Chy

He ridicules judges, trivialises verdict

Wasim Bin Habib
With an obvious air of nonchalance, he made jeering comments about the judges, with a smile of sneer on his lips, as they were reading out what turned out to be his death sentence.
Salauddin Quader Chowdhury chatted with policemen and journalists, making mocking asides every now and then. He spoke, too, to his wife, children and other family members sitting in front of his dock.
This is how Salauddin spent two hours and forty minutes in the dock.
Wearing a white punjabi, pyjamas and maroon sandals, the 64-year-old opposition lawmaker was seen waving his
from page t hand in the prison van that brought him to the court. He was taken into the courtroom at 10:40am.
Entering the dock at the right end of the courtroom, he sat on the chair cross-legged. He kept his spectacles on a tray attached to the dock.
His first response to the judges came around ten minutes later, when one of them mentioned his name as an elected representative for “five times'. He told the people by the dock, "No, it's six times."
As the judge once again said five times, both he and his lawyer Fakhrul Islam stood up and told the court that it should be six times.
The court paused for a moment when Salauddin, a standing committee member of the BNP, said, 'As you wrote it five times let it be five times." The court resumed reading out the verdict and he started listening to it, tilting his head to his left.
After a while, he was seen telling the people that tens of thousands of
people had given their verdict of support to him, and now "I have to listen to the verdict from these three."
While the tribunal observed that the trial had been conducted under the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973, Salauddin cut in, saying the trial had been held under the act amended in 2009.
As the judge was delivering the verdict on charge number three, the BNP leader, after a brief chat with his wife, stood up to say the verdict had already been available on the internet for the last two days. Therefore, he added, there was no need to read it out.
Sitting back on his chair, he told the police, "It's a waste of time; it's already out.”
At one point, Salauddin asked the journalists standing by the dock, "Are you all journalists?" He continued, without mentioning any name, "They want to stop me from participating in the election through the verdict. So much trouble they are taking just to keep me out of the
polls!”
Referring to the judges, he noted, “The verdict has been written outside the country and they are struggling to read out the written stuff. Their throats must have dried up.
"Why don't they say I killed 20 lakh people out of the 30 lakh [killed during the Liberation War[?" At this stage, he winked at the journalists.
He commented that joining the BNP was his unforgivable sin. "I was a patriot when I was with Hasina [the prime minister), and I was no more a patriot as soon as I joined the BNP."
All the while, Salauddin used expressions like "no, never", “oh, really" and, with a ring of mockery, “correct" and "thank you very much".
As the court mentioned Bangladesh Muktijuddher Dalilpatra, which was used as evidence in the trial, he said with a show of ridicule, "Oh it's the Sahih Hadith.”
At one point, he wanted to know where this correspondent works. When replied to, he said,
“It's no use speaking with you.” Yet he added, "Didn't you get the copy of the verdict? It's available."
He went on, "Listen, Shakespeare said the madmen leading the blind -- that is the plague of our time [the exact quote from the English dramatist, however, goes, “Tis the times' plague, when madmen lead the blind"). This is my comment on the tribunal."
On a different note, Salauddin said, "When a man like [ Delawar Hossain] Sayedee was given the capital punishment, then I am a sinner. I will also be condemned to death because I am the son of F a z 1 u 1 Quader Chowdhury."
When the judges completed reading the judgement and left the courtroom, he stood up and yelled, "This verdict was leaked from the law ministry and it has been on the internet since yesterday. So, I thank the law ministry."
Most of the exchanges between him and the reporters seemed to be out of earshot of the judges.