Sqc Verdict Leak
2 ICT employees put in custody
A Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court on Saturday remanded two International Crimes Tribunal employees in police custody for eight days for interrogation in the case of parts of the verdict sentencing Salauddin Quader Chowdhury to death being leaked.
The investigators are also looking for another suspect, Mehedi Hassan, an assistant of Salauddin’s defence counsel AKM Fakhrul Islam.
Fakhrul, however, could not be reached.
The International Crimes Tribunal 1 on October 2 pronounced the judgement sentencing Bangladesh Nationalist Party lawmaker Salauddin to death on charge of genocide and crimes against humanity committed in Chittagong during the 1971 war of independence.
Just after the pronouncement of the verdict, Salauddin’s family and Fakhrul claimed that they had found the judgement on different websites two days before it was delivered.
On Saturday, metropolitan magistrate Mohammad Abdus Salam remanded the tribunal’s cleaner Nayon Ali and office assistant Faruk Hossain in police custody after the Detective Branch of police produced them before the court.
The detectives arrested the two employees on Friday and placed them before the court seeking them in custody for 10 days for interrogation saying that the video footage captured in closed-circuit television cameras showed their suspicious movement in the tribunal chair’s chamber.
The defence counsel, Syed Zaynul Abedin Mesbha, however, argued that the video footage was not produced before the court.
He also argued that in many sensitive cases powerful quarters imposed their faults on ordinary people to sidetrack the investigation.
The government is now trying to blame others for leaking the parts of the draft verdict to cover up its failure to protect verdict from being leaked, Mesbha argued seeking bail for Nayon and Faruk.
The detectives began the investigation after the tribunal registrar AKM Nasiruddin Mahmud on October 2 filed a general diary with the Shahbagh police stating that the parts of the draft judgement had been leaked.
The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission is also looking into how the leaked portion of the draft verdict was disseminated worldwide through internet.
The commission investigators, however, refrained from commenting on the ‘sensitive’ matter.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police joint commissioner (detectives) Monirul Islam at a briefing at the DMP media centre on Friday announced only the arrest of Nayon.
When approached on Saturday, Monirul claimed that they had arrested Faruk at his Azimpur house on Friday night.
Faruk’s brother Fakhrul Hossain, however, alleged that the plainclothes arrested Faruk on Friday morning.
Monirul, who is leading a high-power team investigating into the matter, also claimed that Nayon introduced Mehedi Hassan, an assistant of defence counsel AKM Fakhrul Islam, with Faruk a month ago.
‘We are trying to arrest Mehedi. After detaining him, we might get a clear view of total scenario,’ he said.
Faruk and Nayon in three phases had leaked the draft verdict to Mehedi through the flash drives, said the investigators.
Sources said that in preliminary interrogation Faruk named Nayon and when the detectives called, Nayon surrendered to the investigators on Friday afternoon.
Detective Branch inspector Fazlur Rahman on Friday filed a case with Shahbagh police station accusing Nayon, Farukh, Mehedi Hassan and some unknown persons of leaking the parts of the draft judgement.
-With New Age input
