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Nizami favoured

War crimes tribunal allows questionable witness to testify for him

Staff Correspondent
Allegedly intentional but definitely sloppy defence work almost led to the testimony of the first defence witness expunged from the war crimes case against Jamaat chief Motiur Rahman Nizami yesterday.
Much to the dismay of the prosecution, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 later accepted the witness even though the defence had twice "made mistakes" in mentioning the witness's name on the witness list.
As per the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973, the defence have to submit a list of witnesses they would use and Nizami's counsel submitted a list of 10,111 witnesses during the trial.
Earlier this month, the tribunal cut the number of defence witnesses to four. The defence then furnished a short list of five witnesses - Abdul Hamid, S Alam, Abdul Hamid, Abdus Salam Mukul and Mohammad Nazibar Rahman.
The first defence witness in the case was supposed to be one of the two people named Abdul Hamid on the list.
But yesterday a lawyer from Pabna named KM Hamidur Rahman testified before the tribunal and the tribunal recorded his testimony at length.
However, before cross-examination, prosecutor Mohammad Ali sought three hours for preparation. He said the witness was not the person mentioned on the witness list.
The judges of the tribunal, to their astonishment, discovered that there was no KM Hamidur Rahman on the list.
When the tribunal asked the defence what was going on, defence counsel Mizanul Islam said a junior lawyer had made a mistake and mentioned Abdul Hamid instead of KM Hamidur Rahman. He apologised for the mistake.
Tribunal-1 Chairman Justice ATM Fazle Kabir then said, "Why didn't you point it [mistake] out before the deposition? It cannot be a mistake."
Addressing the junior lawyer concerned, Justice Kabir said the lawyer perhaps did not understand the magni-
tude of fraudulence before a court.
"We'll expunge the deposition," said Justice Kabir directing the witness to step down from the dock.
However, the tribunal asked the lawyers to check if KM Hamidur Rahman was on the list of the 10,111 witnesses.
KM Hamidur Rahman was not found on the list.
The tribunal then adjourned the proceeding for two hours giving the defence the opportunity to find KM Hamidur Rahman's name on the list.
Surprisingly, after lunch, the defence told the tribunal that the 7,165th witness was KM Hamidur Rahman, even though one Alhaj Md Hamidur Rahman was the 7,165th defence witness.
The defence claimed that the initials "KM" were omitted mistakenly but the person on the list and the person who testified yesterday were the same. The defence also filed a petition in this regard pointing out they had made inadvertent mistakes, but did not apologise.
Interestingly, the defence in the petition asked the court to change the name Abdul Hamid to Alhaj Md Hamidur Rahman even though KM Hamidur Rahman was the person who testified.
The court then asked the defence to correct their mistake in the petition and file it afresh. It also allowed the testimony of KM Hamidur Rahman.
The prosecution was disappointed with the court order.
In his about 25-minute deposition, Hamidur claimed that he was a freedom fighter who along with others asked the family members of Razakars, an auxiliary force of the Pakistani army, not to harm the locals of Pabna.
Hamidur, of Gokulpur village in Sujanagar, said during the Liberation War none told him that Nizami committed any crimes against humanity or was involved in any such crimes.
He also claimed that he did not find Nizami's name on the list of Razakars and Al-Badr members, which was prepared after the war. He said he had seen Nizami moving freely in Pabna after the Liberation War.
Later, during cross-examination, Hamidur said he did not know the political identity of Nizami during the war but he now knows that Nizami is the ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami.
He said he did not know whether Jamaat had any student wing during the Liberation War. In reply to another question, Hamidur said he did not read any newspapers during the Liberation War.