A special court has fixed the date for passing its judgment on the case over the leak of Salauddin Quader Chowdhury’ war crimes verdict.
Judge KM Shamsul Islam of Bangladesh Cyber Tribunal on Thursday concluded the trial and said he will deliver a verdict on Aug 14.
Former BNP MP from Chittagong, Salauddin Chowdhury was executed in November last year for crimes against humanity during Bangladesh’s Liberation War.
His wife Farhat Quader Chowdhury, son Hummam Quader Chowdhury and four other accused pleaded not guilty to the charges in court on Monday. Another accused is absconding.
Apart from Farhat and Hummam, the other accused are Salauddin Quader’s lawyer Fakhrul Islam and manager Mahbubul Ahsan, Mehedi Hasan, a staff to lawyer Islam, and two International Crimes Tribunal employees Nayan Ali and Faruk Hossain.
The court on Thursday issued a warrant for Hummam as he did not attend the hearing. It also scrapped bails for the other suspects, except for Farhat and sent them to jail.
On Oct 1, 2013, Salauddin Quader was handed down the death sentence by the ICT.
Farhat with a ‘copy of the verdict’.
Hummam with a ‘copy of the verdict’.
But before the verdict was announced, the BNP leader’s wife and other members of the family had showed ‘copies of the verdict’ to journalists, claiming they had found them on the internet.
Amid a furore, the ICT admitted that the draft of the verdict had indeed been leaked and the tribunal registrar had started the case with police.
Police had pressed charges against the seven in August 2014.
The two ICT employees accused in the case and Salauddin’s lawyer Fakhrul Islam were arrested in 2014.
The High Court in December last year granted Islam bail in the case.
The two ICT staffers had confessed to court that they were involved in the leaking of the tribunal verdict.
Salauddin Quader had moved the Supreme Court challenging his death sentence. But the Appellate Division upheld his punishment.
He was hanged on Nov 21 last year after the top appeals court also threw out his petition to review the death penalty.
Source: Bd news24
