The war crimes tribunal yesterday expressed dissatisfaction over the defence counsels’ “fraudulent behaviour” as they produced before it a witness to testify in favour of Jamaat-e Islami Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami even though his name was not in three lists the defence had provided earlier.
Lawyer of Pabna Judge’s Court KM Hamidur Rahman, 66, in his deposition at the International Crimes Tribunal 1 claimed that he had never heard about the involvement of Nizami in any crimes during the 1971 Liberation War in Pabna’s Santhia.
“I was a freedom fighter in 1971. None of my findings or sources ever told me that he was involved in any sort of crimes in 1971 in Santhia,” the witness said.
The “fraudulence” came to the tribunal’s knowledge when prosecutor Mohammad Ali started cross examining him and asked his permanent address.
The tribunal intervened and asked such details were supposed to be in the hand of the prosecutors. Ali replied that they did not have any details about the witness. He said the final list of five witnesses submitted to the tribunal and given to the prosecution by defence counsel Tajul Islam did not have Hamidur’s name.
On Sunday, Tajul submitted the list containing five names – Abdul Hamid, Abdul Samad, Abdul Hamid, Mujibur Rahman and S Alam. The day was set to begin recording of defence witness deposition. But the proceedings were postponed following a petition filed by Tajul saying that they were unable to place any witness.
The tribunal yesterday asked the defence counsel whether the first witness’s name was in the list of 25 short-listed names the defence had submitted earlier. The defence was asked to shortlist the primary list of 10,111 witnesses.
Defence lawyer Mizanul Islam claimed that the shortlist only mentioned the number of witnesses.
Another defence lawyer Nazib Momen, also the son of the alleged war criminal, claimed that Hamidur’s name was in the primary list.
The tribunal responded: “You are a senior lawyer. We do not expect such behaviour from you. You are behaving in a fraudulent way dealing with the defence witnesses.”
Both the defence lawyers then apologised to the tribunal and defended saying that it was a clerical mistake.
Later, the tribunal said they would decide on accepting the deposition in the afternoon after cross-checking the primary list of 10,111 witnesses.
In the afternoon session, the defence submitted a plea to allow them correcting the name to Alhaj Hamidur Rahman.
The tribunal pointed out that this name was also wrong as the placed witness’ name was KM Hamidur Rahman. It then ordered the defence to submit another petition mentioning the witness’ name properly.
“However, the name of one Alhaj M Hamidur Rahman is at serial number 7,165 of the list,” acknowledged the tribunal, chaired by Justice ATM Fazle Kabir.
The tribunal allowed KM Hamidur’s deposition and set today for further procedure of the case.
