WAR CRIMES TRIAL - Witnesses are making disturbing disclosures
Special Correspondent
The war crime trial has entered into a crucial phase in recent weeks with embarrassing disclosures of the witnesses, which are undermining the veracity of the allegations against Jamaat-e-Islami senior leader Maulana Delwar Hossain Sayeede who is now facing hearing.
Sayeed, a consultative committee member of his party and three times MP from Pirojpur, is a leading religious scholar and Islamic preacher of the country. He is standing the trial for his alleged crime against humanity during the Liberation War of 1971 which include rape, arson, looting, killing and conversion of the members of the Hindu community members as a local collaborator of the Pakistani occupation forces.
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Special Correspondent
The war crime trial has entered into a crucial phase in recent weeks with embarrassing disclosures of the witnesses, which are undermining the veracity of the allegations against Jamaat-e-Islami senior leader Maulana Delwar Hossain Sayeede who is now facing hearing.
Sayeed, a consultative committee member of his party and three times MP from Pirojpur, is a leading religious scholar and Islamic preacher of the country. He is standing the trial for his alleged crime against humanity during the Liberation War of 1971 which include rape, arson, looting, killing and conversion of the members of the Hindu community members as a local collaborator of the Pakistani occupation forces.
Sayeede is in prison for over a year when the prosecution has carried out long investigations and put serious efforts to collect evidences of his involvement in the alleged crimes. But the disclosures of the witnesses, as regularly reported in the press now, present conflicting accounts from each other. Their exposures give the impression that these are mostly framed up charges or that the witnesses are speaking on framed up accounts of the crimes without seeing the incidents in the ground.
What is most damaging for the prosecution is the fact that out of 6 witnesses four of them appeared convicted thieves, known cheats and fortune seekers who may have traded off their involvement in exchange of material benefits.
Yet more damaging is the fact that the International Crime Tribunal (ICT) last week asked the prosecution to take back the charges against Prof. Gulam Azam to further strengthen the charges basing on more credible facts and put them before the tribunal. The judges found that the charges are general in nature without indicting his personal involvement in crimes which are punishable under the ICT laws.
The tribunal was expected to pass order on the day to take Gulam Azam into the custody to stand trial. But its return of the charges to the prosecution has not only shocking. Observers feel it is an unusual move from the court of justice.
In yet another order, the ICT has asked the prosecution Wednesday last to take back the charges against Abdul Qadir Mollah and Quamruzzaman, two other Jamaat leaders in the custody, waiting to start hearing. The court cited similar reasons asking the prosecution to further strengthening the charges.
The rights of the accused are not protected here at all, critics opposed to the trial said.
The defence on Wednesday last made sensational disclosures, as reported in national dailies. They were cross-examining the 6th witness in the court. The witness Manik Poshari said he had seen Delwar Hossain Sayeede and a group of Razakars were picking up Ibrahim Kutri, a domestic help and Mofizuddin from his house and then Kutri was shot dead on instruction from Sayeede and later thrown into a local canal. He said it happened on May 8, 1971.
But when the defence produced a case dossier filed by Momtaj Begum, wife of Ibrahim Kutri, at the Pirojpur court on July 16, 1972 in which she claimed her husband was killed on October 1, 1971, by the Razakars five months after the incident as reported by Manik Poshari, Poshari said he had no knowledge about it.
In her case she accused 13 Razakars and the name of Delwar Hossain Sayeede was not in the list of the accused. The defence said, this is how Manik Poshari was using his position to implicate a man who was not involved in the case.
Poshari admitted to the questioning that he was not a freedom fighter, but the incumbent Awami League MP has given him a certificate in this regard and as such he is enjoying all benefits of a freedom fighter.
Poshari said currently he is the incumbent secretary of the Union Awami League and his son is the president of the Zianagar Upazila Chhatra League, the student wing of Awami League. He said he was not present when his house was looted by Delwar Hossain Sayeede but later heard about it.
Syeede is also accused of routine rape of young women and their handing over them to Pakistani forces in the camp. It was stated by two witnesses such as Sultan Ahmed Hawlader and Ruhul Amin Nobin in their earlier deposition to the tribunal that Sayeede had routinely raped Bhanu Saha, a young girl, to make the charge clear against him.
But the deposition of another witness Mahbubuddin Hawlader said Muslem Maulna had lived throughout the period with Bhanu Saha at her father Bipod Saha's house and he did not know if they had married.
Muslem Maulana is now president of the local Ulema League, a front organization of the ruling Awami League. So he is not in any trouble, the defense said. The personal profile of most of the witnesses said they were fortune seekers and anti-social in nature.
One of the witnesses, Sultan Ahmed Hawlader, has four cases in record, all relating to theft. He is not a freedom fighter either; but the incumbent local ruling party MP has certified him as a freedom fighter saying he had fought the liberation war under him on the war front. He is now enjoying freedom fighters' allowances, besides securing indemnity from the theft case, and on top of it using 10 bighas of arable government khas land.
Another witness, Mahbubul Alam Hawlader has two cases against him. He has secured release from one case reportedly at the ruling party intervention while the second case is pending in the High Court. Hawlader is also a fake freedom fighter but enjoying government allowances along with a separate allowance for his second wife, besides other financial benefits. He has a new brick-built house although he had also applied for financial help from the former BNP government and received it.
Another witness, Ruhul Amin Nobin, was exempted from a case relating to electricity pilferage. He also received support from the government to repay his loan to Pubali Bank while enjoying exemption of interest on the loan. The defence claimed he has traded off his service to the government becoming a witness to the case against all such benefits.
The ruling party mobilised its cadres in the capital Thursday last demanding speedy trial of the war crime offenders. A group of five ministers, as per a newspaper report, recently asked the government to put the accused to cross fire instead of prolonging the trial.
Deputy Leader of the House Sajeda Chowdhury said her party will not go home without the trial and execution of the judgment of the ICT. The trial is thus being closely observed by the local and international communities how the trial is moving onward.
Source:
The Weekly Holiday
Friday, December 30, 2011
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