Case against Sayedee
Last PW cross-examined for fourth day
The defence cross-examined the last prosecution witness in a case against Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delawar Hossain Sayedee at the International Crimes Tribunal-1 for the fourth day yesterday.
Mohammad Helal Uddin, the witness and investigator of the case, yesterday faced questions regarding a website he used for the investigation and evidence collected for the case related to crimes against humanity that Sayedee allegedly committed during the Liberation War of 1971.
The prosecution witness, who is also an assistant superintendent of police (ASP), however, did not reply directly to some of the defence's questions. The prosecution also intervened in the cross-examination on several occasions.
Visibly annoyed at these, AKM Zaheer Ahmed, a judge at the three-member tribunal, said, “you are not giving answers according to the questions” and asked the investigation officer to reply to the questions properly.
The judge also expressed irritation as prosecutor Sahidur Rahman tried to assist the witness during the cross-examination.
Mentioning that Helal Uddin is an educated and award-wining police officer and there is no need to teach him, Zaheer Ahmed told the prosecutor, “How come! This is not a playground. It's a court of law.”
“Let him understand and reply. There is no need to hurry”, the judge said.
Earlier, the defence and the witness spent some time over a website, which the witness had mentioned in his testimony.
ASP Helal Uddin in his deposition said he went through the website "genocidebangladesh.org" and downloaded some information about the Liberation War.
In response to questions, the investigation officer said the website was one of his sources of information that some houses of Barisal and a number of other localities, including Sayedee's viilage home in Pirojpur, were damaged during the 1971 war.
The investigation officer however admitted that Sayedee's name was not found in the documents he downloaded from the site.
Sayedee's defence counsel Mizanul Islam claimed that there was a link of Kean University of USA to the site but there was no such information regarding the Liberation War. Knowing the fact, the investigator willingly presented the "misinformation" at the court, he said.
It is not true, replied Helal Uddin.
Earlier, in the beginning of the day's proceedings, the defence lawyers drew attention of the court on International Crimes (Tribunal-1) Rules of Procedure (Amendment), 2012, which was published in a gazette on April 19, 2012.
The defence expressed their concern to the court as the amendment of the rules might be harmful for them. But the court assured them it would not be harmful.
bdnews24.com cautioned
The tribunal chairman Justice Md Nizamul Huq yesterday cautioned, bdnews24.com, an online newspaper, for one of its Monday's report headlined "Website queries halt ICT-1 grilling".
Justice Nizamul Huq said the headline was “contemptuous” and pointed out that the website queries did not at all halt the proceedings.
"People at home and abroad read your stories [on the tribunal]. Now you tell me, what kind of a signal went out to the world with this report?"
"Please be careful with the reports and the headlines", he asked.
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