The war crimes tribunal has fixed November 5 to pass order on whether to frame charges against Sheikh Sirajul Haque alias Siraj Master, Abdul Latif Talukder and Khan Akram Hossain.
The defence yesterday ended hearing on the discharge petitions they had filed in the case at the International Crimes Tribunal 1.
M Sarwar Hossain, counsel for Latif and Akram, placed his submission and pleaded for their acquittal from the charges of crimes against humanity.
On September 30, Mohammad Abul Hasan, the state-appointed defence counsel for Siraj Master, also known as Siraj Kosai, placed his arguments.
Sarwar said the case based on which the tribunal investigation agency launched probe had been disposed off. “The daughter of the victim has given an affidavit, claiming that my clients were not involved in the murder of her father.”
The counsel, however, placed the submission without showing any documents.
In support of Akram, he said: “The accused was 15-years-old during the 1971 Liberation War and his name was not mentioned in the list of razakars.”
He claimed that Latif used to make breads at a camp of the freedom fighters, and that he had been forced to join razakar forces. “Latif never took part in any crimes,” Sarwar claimed.
Akram and Latif are facing four out of eight charges pressed against the trio.
The defence said one of the charges against his clients was forcefully converting 200 Hindus of Shakharikathi and its adjacent area of Bagerhat into Muslims in July 1971 and another charge, brought against them, was on their involvement in the killing of 42 Hindus of the same village on November 5.
Citing prosecution document, Sarwar argued that the 42 Hindus, who had been killed on November 5, were among the 200 converted Muslims. “These 200 Hindus were forced to follow Islamic rituals, but the prosecution has mentioned them as Hindus in the charge,” he said.
Among the eight charges, four have been brought against Siraj Kosai alone for killing about 666 people, two against three of them for the killing of 47 people while two others against Akram and Latif for converting 200 Hindus and killing a person.
