The war crimes tribunal has allowed four witnesses to defend the charges pressed against Jamaat-e-Islami leader Motiur Rahman Nizami as it thinks there is “no burden of proving any matter” upon the defence.
The tribunal 1 gave the order on Sunday upon a defence petition to place at least 25 witnesses. Earlier the counsels for Nizami had placed a list of 10,111 witnesses.
It also asked the defence to complete the cross-examination of the investigation officer in the case by the first session on Monday.
The prosecution alleged that the defence wanted to delay the trial. The defence said since the prosecution had placed 25 witnesses, they too had the right to produce witnesses of the same number.
The tribunal in its order said by considering the hearing of both parties, “it is not necessary to place same number of witnesses in both sides. The burden of the case lying upon prosecution as per rule 51, not upon the defence, and the defence has no need to prove them innocent.”
The three-member tribunal headed by Justice ATM Fazle Kabir said justice would be made if the defence was allowed to place four witnesses.
The prosecution stared placing witnesses against Nizami since August 26 last year. Of the 25 witnesses, the prosecution announced the seventh witness, Pradip Kumar Dev, as hostile witness as he had not mentioned the name of Nizami in his deposition.
Meanwhile, on Sunday was set to complete the cross-examination of IO Abdur Razzaque Khan. But as they did not do so, the tribunal chairman said: “Now you are not taking this order seriously but if we close it then you will say we are not giving you enough time.”
Justice Jahangir, one of the members, said: “The IO took two and a half sessions to close his deposition while you have got five sessions to grill him. Now you have to close.”