The International Crimes Tribunal 1 has set September 26 for passing order on a show-cause notice issued to two editors of The Economist for publishing the alleged Skype conversation between a tribunal judge and an emigrant Bangladeshi legal expert.
The order was to be delivered on Tuesday but the tribunal, acting on its own motion, deferred the date.
The former chairman of tribunal 1, Nizamul Huq, had issued the show-cause notice on December 6 last year, after a person claiming to have been from the London-based weekly called him. The Economist representative said they had with them the records of Skype conversation and email communication between the judge and Ahmed Ziauddin, an expert based in Brussels.
The controversy surfaced after Bangla national daily Amar Desh published its story “transcript of Skype conversation.”
In his submission earlier, counsel for the journalists Mustafizur Rahman said his clients had not done anything contemptuous by contacting the tribunal’s former chairman. He, however, admitted that the journalists should have gone through the tribunal’s registrar, which is the proper channel.
On the other hand, prosecutor Sultan Mahmud said since hacking is an offence, therefore, publishing of information obtained through hacking into skype conversations and e-mails is punishable too. He claimed that it had been done to mire the tribunal in controversy.