Petitions for retrial of war crimes cases against Jamaat-e-Islami leaders Ghulam Azam, Motiur Rahman Nizami, Delawar Hossain Sayedee and Muhammad Kamruzzaman were rejected on Thursday.
The International Crimes Tribunal-1 rejected three petitions of Ghulam Azam, Nizami and Sayedee while the ICT-2 rejected the petition of Kamruzzaman.
The Jamaat leaders are facing the trial for committing crimes against humanity during the country's Liberation War in 1971.
However, the ICT-1 led by Justice ATM Fazle Kabir on Thursday decided to hear again the argument in the case filed against Jamaat leader Sayedee from January 13 to 17.
After the completion of Sayedee's argument, both the prosecution and defence will get one-hour for argument only on law point, the tribunal said.
The tribunal earlier completed the argument on Sayedee's charges in the second week of December.
During today's proceedings, the tribunal termed hacking of Skype conversation as 'illegal and crime'.
As the tribunal started around 11:00am, the defence claimed that different orders in the cases and the formal charges brought against the three Jamaat leaders came from Brussels.
But the tribunal rejected the retrial petitions saying that the trial does not depend on the orders and formal charges only. Its also depends on evidence and witnesses' statements, the tribunal said.
The ICT decided to resume the proceedings of Ghulam Azam's trial on January 7.
Earlier on January 1, the tribunal fixed the date after holding hearing on the appeals filed by Ghulam Azam on December 19 last year while Nizami and Sayedee on December 23.
Jamaat leader Muhammad Kamaruzzaman also filed a petition on Wednesday to reinitiate his crimes against humanity case.
The retrial petitions came after an alleged Skype conversation between former tribunal-1 chief Justice Nizamul Huq and Ahmed Ziauddin, a legal expert now in Brussels, was published by a Bangla daily earlier on December in 2012.
Nizamul resigned from the tribunal post citing personal reasons after his conversation through Skype with the legal expert was published.
Source:The Daily Star
