A member of the International Crimes Tribunal that handed down war criminal Salauddin Quader Chowdhury death sentence pointed his finger on Wednesday at the convict’s family for “spending a huge amount of money to leak” a part of the draft of their judgement.
Against the backdrop of controversy from Tuesday morning over the leak through little known websites, one of the three member panel of the tribunal 1 Justice Jahangir Hossain said it was a plot to make the tribunal controversial.
Hours after his remarks, the tribunal registrar briefed the media and announced that a part of the draft judgement was leaked from the tribunal’s computer.
The registrar said as per directive of the tribunal judges, he had filed a general diary with the local police station to unearth the mystery behind the leak of the judgement.
“We hope the truth will come out and it will be possible to identify those who are involved with this conspiracy,” said Registrar AKM Nasiruddin Mahmud: “Necessary legal actions will be taken if any employee of the tribunal is involved in this criminal offence.”
Meanwhile, some sources close to the tribunal activities told the Dhaka Tribune that as the registrar himself confirmed the “draft of the verdict” was leaked from the tribunal computer so it was obvious some of its officials who had access to the draft in the computer were involved.
There are few officials in the suspect list and they might be arrested after having all the proof of their involvement, said a source.
Another source at the tribunal said the computer at the tribunal 1 chairman’s office was being used for drafting the verdict. The chairman used to give dictation or sometimes he used to write drafts and the staffs used to type it in computer, the source said.
Detective Branch (DB) of Police is investigating the incident. Meanwhile, telecom regulator BTRC said they had blocked the three websites “bdtomorrow,” “Jatir Santan” and “Sheikh News” which published the “leaked verdict” according to the directives of the government. Meanwhile, the home ministry officials said they had not got any instruction from the higher authorities to proceed with the issue.
In the general diary, the registrar mentioned that a copy of the “draft verdict” was still seen on www.tribunalleaks.be.
Salauddin Quader’s wife Farhat Quader Chowdhury on Wednesday declined to make any comment on the issue. Contacted over the phone, she told the Dhaka Tribune: “No comment.”
However, during the delivery of the verdict, Salauddin Quader himself from the dock, and his wife and other family members and relatives soon after pronouncing the judgement brought the issue to forefront to create controversy.
But Justice Jahangir Wednesday told in the open court that the leaked part of the draft of the judgement was not identical with the delivered one.
He urged all present at the court room on Wednesday to read full verdict and said: “The choice of words and language of the real verdict and ‘leaked’ version are totally different.”
Terming leaked incident “a major conspiracy,” he said: “It was done to make the tribunal controversial.” He uttered the word “shame” repeatedly and said: “I cannot imagine how people were deceived.”
The registrar said: “There are some similarities between the so-called ‘leaked’ draft verdict and the real one. But it is not the verdict which was prepared for pronouncing formally [at the tribunal].”
Citing differences between the two documents, he said: “In the ‘leaked’ copy, there was no paragraph marked or numbered which the real verdict copy has.”
The tribunal authorities suspect that the draft was “leaked” a few days before delivery of the judgement but an organise group of offenders made it public through a website just hours before delivering the judgement to create controversy about the judicial function of the tribunal.
Justice Jahangir spoke about the issue just after sitting on the bench along with two other colleague judges as the chief prosecutor drew attention of the tribunal about the alleged “leak” incident and the post-verdict reaction of Supreme Court lawyer Khandker Mahbub Hossain and sought a rule.
“The controversy raised yesterday [Tuesday] over the leaked verdict is not acceptable,” Justice Jahangir said.
Comparing himself with the two other colleagues of the bench, he said: “I may be a small fry, I don’t understand much. But Chairman Shaheb [head of the tribunal 1] has been conducting judicial activities for 30 to 32 years and [Justice] Anwarul Haque Shaheb is also a senior person. It has not been right to humiliate them.”
“There is a huge investment of the family of the accused behind this [leaking the verdict],” he added. “This conspiracy was only to malign the tribunal to the international community.”
Questioning about the hierarchy, Justice Jahangir asked: “How can the law ministry officials who are of the rank of district judges dictate us? Are they more competent than us that we should need them to write the verdict?”
On Tuesday, the family and defence counsel of Salauddin Quader claimed that the verdict had been “prepared” and “dictated” by the law ministry. They also claimed that it was “leaked” from a computer of the law ministry.
In a written statement, the registrar said parties of cases, prosecution and defence counsels were officers of this court. It was the duty of defence counsel to inform the tribunal about this “leak” issue before the pronouncement of the verdict. But they did not do so.
After delivery of the verdict, they claimed to media that they had received it earlier on Monday night and that it was a “dictated” verdict. “This type of intentional statement is their professional misconduct,” added the registrar.
The general diary field on Wednesday terms the “leak” of parts of the draft judgement a “matter of concern.”
It says though the delivered verdict and the “leaked verdict” has some similarities but there was “no scope” of publication of a part of the judgement before its pronouncement. “It is a threat to the tribunal’s security and transparency.”