The hearing on the summing-up arguments will begin afresh on Monday at the reconstituted International Crimes Tribunal-1 in the case of detained Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Matiur Rahman Nizami being tried on charges of crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.
The rehearing on the summing up arguments will take place due to ‘no-existence’ of the tribunal following vacancy of the post of its chairman for long.
The prosecution will again initiate summing-up argument with law points, to be followed by the defence counsel.
Earlier, the three-member tribunal with Justice ATM Fazle Kabir as its chairman had kept pending its verdict in the Nizami case to be delivered any day, after closing the summing-up arguments from both the prosecution and the defence sides since November last year.
On February 26, the reconstituted ICT-1 with Justice M Enayetur Rahim as its chairman took over 56 days after his predecessor went on retirement.
Hearing both sides, the reconstituted tribunal recalled its earlier order (judgment to be delivered any day) and fixed March 10 for rehearing summing-up arguments in the Nizami case.
A former minister during the past BNP-Jamaat rule, Nizami, since condemned in the Chittagong 10-truck arms haul case, is being tried on charges of involvement in murders and torture of unarmed people along with hatching conspiracies, planning, incitement and complicity to commit genocide and crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War in collaboration with the Pakistan occupation army.
Nizami faces 16 counts of charges based on 16 separate incidents of crimes against humanity, in which at least 600 unarmed people were killed and 31 women raped during the Liberation War.
The prosecution, however, did not press one charge (charge No. 5–Ishwardi mass killing) as they failed to produce its witnesses.
On May 28, 2012, the tribunal indicted the Jamaat ameer for committing crimes against humanity in 1971.
Nizami was arrested from in front of the Jatiya Press Club on June 29, 2010, after a magistrate court in Dhaka issued warrant of arrest in connection with a criminal case over hurting religious sentiment of Muslims.
Later, responding to a prosecution plea, the tribunal on July 22 the same year shown him arrested in connection with the war crimes case.
Source: UNBConnect
