Yusuf Trial: Tribunal orders defence counsel to pay Tk 40,000 as cost

With a cost of Tk 40,000, the International Crimes Tribunal-2 on Tuesday allowed a defence plea of lifting its bar to cross-examine four prosecution witnesses against detained accused AKM Yusuf, founder of the notorious Razakar outfit during the 1971 Liberation War, for nonappearance of engaged counsel during political programme like blockade. 

Passing the order, the three-member tribunal, headed by Justice Obaidul Hassan, asked the defence counsel to pay Tk 40,000 in favour of the chief prosecutor as cost in connection with the case.

 

The tribunal also allocated defence counsel Mizanul Islam four days for cross-examination of the PWs that will begin on December 23.

 

Nayeb-e-ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami Yusuf, now 87, also the second man in the party leadership, faces 15 counts of charges, including genocide, killing, loot, arson, deportation of people, and religious conversion.

 

On May 8, the prosecution submitted formal charge against him that fall under 3(2), 4 (1) and 4 (2) of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act 1973.

 

According to the prosecution, Yusuf, a member of the Malek cabinet in occupied Bangladesh, a rubberstamp government backed by the Pakistan junta, had formed for the first time in Khulna in 1971 the vigilante group Razakar with the members of Jamaat-e-Islami that acted as an auxiliary force of the Pakistan occupation army to actively thwart the Bangladesh liberation forces.