Detectives on Sunday raided the room at the International Crimes Tribunal where detained cleaner Nayan Ali used to live, and claimed to have found a lot of evidence in connection with the leak of draft verdict of war criminal Salauddin Quader Chowdhury.
Led by Krishnapada Roy, a deputy commissioner of the Detective Branch (south), the investigators began searching the room around 11am. Nayan was with them.
“We searched the room and seized various materials as evidence from there,” he said.
Cleaner Nayan and the tribunal registrar’s stenographer Mohammad Faruque were arrested on Friday in connection with the leak.
Krishnapada declined to give details about the search but said: “The materials we found will be helpful for the investigation as well as for placing as evidence in the case.”
The room is located on the ground floor of the tribunal building where Nayan resided along with a few other staffers of the special tribunal. There was no computer in the room.
Sources said the investigators also interrogated other boarders of the room and kept them under surveillance.
Krishnapada declined to comment on whether the other boarders had any involvement in the incident.
After the raid, the investigators also talked to Justice ATM Fazle Kabir, chairman of tribunal 1, which sentenced BNP lawmaker Salauddin Quader Choudhury to death on October 1.
“The investigators talked to the judge as part of the investigation as well as to discuss some matters with him,” said the DB officer.
Night before the delivery of the verdict, a portion of the verdict was found online. Later, it was revealed that a draft copy of the verdict had been stolen from the computer.
The tribunal registrar filed a general diary the next day. DB officials investigating the matter seized the computer and video footages from the CCTVs installed in and around the tribunal the same night.
They arrested Nayan and Faruque on Friday and showed them arrested in connection with a case filed by police under the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act with Shahbagh police station.
Apart from the two, the detectives also made Mehedi Hasan, a junior to Salauddin Quader’s lawyer Fakhrul Islam Chowdhury, accused in the case along with some unnamed others.
After the arrests, the DB officials at a press conference disclosed that Nayan had stolen the document from the computer of the tribunal chairman using a flash drive and supplied to Mehedi while Faruque helped them in the process. Nayan also said he had been bribed and later blackmailed to provide Mehedi with the documents.
Law enforcers also raided Fakhrul’s chamber at Kakrail and seized two computers, a printer, around 50 CDs and some other evidence from the room of Mehedi.
Both Nayan and Faruque are now on an eight-day remand while Mehedi is on the run.
Asked if they would interrogate Fakhrul, Krishnapada said it was difficult to say right now whether they would be interrogated or not.
“We have a suspect list and we will question them all one by one,” he added.
After staying more than two hours at the tribunal building, Krishnapada faced the media. Shibli Noman, DC of Ramna, was with him.
Krishnapada evaded a question as to whether Farhat Quader Chowdhury, wife of the convict, would be interrogated. After the judgement, Farhat showed some documents claiming that it was the draft verdict found at the law ministry.
When asked, he told the Dhaka Tribune that the investigators were not concerned with the security of the tribunal building area as it was not the matter of their investigation.
“We are dealing with the immediate crime. Those who are involved to ensure the security of this place will assess it. We are here to find out who leaked the verdict and in what process,” he said.
“We are also trying to find who persuaded them to do it. And hopefully we will find them soon,” the DB officer added.