Court Correspondent
In his confessional statement before a Dhaka court, tribunal cleaner Nayon Ali yesterday explained how he provided the defence lawyer with the draft verdict of Salauddin Quader Chowdhury’s war crimes case.
But his access to the highly sensitive tribunal documents still remains a mystery.
Nayon was appointed on muster roll (daily wage earner) as cleaner about one and a half years ago. He received a sim card, a mobile handset and several thousand taka in exchange for leaking the draft verdict, said court sources quoting Nayon as saying.
Though sources at the Detective Branch (DB) of police said Nayon, a high school graduate, is acquainted with computer, they were mum about how the accused knew exactly which file to copy or whether he had authorised access to the tribunal computer, from which the draft verdict was leaked.
Nayon’s confessional statement does not mention whether the computer, from which he had copied files, was password protected and if he knew the password.
Nayon told Metropolitan Magistrate Tareq Mainul Islam Bhuiyan that seven to eight persons were involved in the leak, including Fakhrul Islam, his assistant advocate Mehedi Hasan and another tribunal staff Faruk Hossain and SQ Chowdhury’s manager, whose name Nayon could not remember.
The accused said Faruk, an office assistant at the tribunal, had introduced him to Mehedi around September 12 or 13.
Mehedi had offered Nayon money for a copy of the verdict, which Mehedi said they needed for submitting a couple of applications to the tribunal.
On September 15, Nayon started delivering the copy of the draft verdict in a pen drive at Fakhrul Islam’s office at the capital’s Kakrail.
He got Tk 500-1,000 every day for the work. Family members of SQ Chowdhury took a copy of the draft judgment every day, added Nayon.
He, however, claimed that he initially was unaware of giving away the draft verdict. He only realised about his mistake on September 25.
The following day, when he declined to supply the draft any more, Fakhrul and Mehedi threatened to kill him if he told anyone about the matter or tried to back out of the arrangement.
Nayon stopped visiting Fakhrul’s office from September 28.
On October 1, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 awarded death penalty to BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury for committing wartime offences during the Liberation War in 1971.
Immediately after the pronouncement of the verdict, Salauddin’s wife and other family members claimed that the “verdict was leaked.”
Nayon and Faruk were arrested on October 4 for their alleged involvement in the leak.
On the same day, a case was filed with Shahbag Police Station against Nayon, Faruk, Mehedi and several other unnamed people under the ICT act.
Source: The Daily Star
It’s quite clear that no one is going to answer the questions the correspondent has raised because ‘if you want to hang one, give him a bad name first then hang him’. This strategy is being practised with no reservation. But fact is, truth must come out today or tomorrow.
HASINA’S CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICISED DETECTIVE POLICE ALLEGED & WANT THE PEOPLE TO BELIEVE,” A CLEANER, UNEDUCATED, AS HE IS, WAS ABLE TO LEAK THE VERDICT FILE FROM THE KANGAROO COURT & SENT IT ALL OVER THE WORLD IN ADVANCE”!!!
Who is going to buy this garbage? After the unmasking of the criminal, conspiratorial, shameful skypegate scandal AND NOW THE MORE SERIOUS “verdict-gate” SCANDAL, POLITICALLY MOTIVATED, VINDICTIVE KANGAROO COURT , MANNED a-z BY INCOMPETENT, POORLY EDUCATED UN-TRAINED PARTY SYCOPHANTS IT IS TIME THAT THIS CIRCUS IS CLOSED. “jonogon” INSIDE THE COUNTRY AND INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY HAVE ALREADY REFUSED TO ACCEPT THE VERDICT OF HANGING OF HASINA & HER FATHER’S MOST BITTEREST POLITICAL ENEMIES. HOW CAN A SEMI-LITERATE OFFICE CLEANER OPERATE A TOP SECRET, HIGHLY PROTECTED COMPUTER AND LEAK the contents of a particular file among others.