Md Amir Hossain Mollah, the ninth prosecution witness against the detained assistant secretary general of the Jamaat, Abdul Quader Molla, on Monday told the International Crimes Tribunal-2 that a case was lodged against him in Pallabi thana on 4 April, 2012 by one Moniruzzaman.
The witness, a freedom-fighter who was being cross-examined by Quader’s defence counsel Md Abdus Sobhan Tarafder, claimed that the case was a false one.
Quader was in the dock.
When the defence counsel asked when Amir surrendered because of the case filed by Moniruzzaman, prosecutor Mohammad Ali protested, saying it was a sub judice matter and the tribunal should not record the question.
‘Should I take lessons from you?’ Sobhan asked Ali loudly, and both got locked in a heated debate.
‘No, it should not be sub judice,’ said another defence counsel, Mohammad Ekramul Huq.
‘It seems that he (Ali) is going to give a judgement,’ Sobhan again said furiously.
Tribunal member Justice Shahinur Islam tried to calm the lawyers.
Another member, Justice Obaidul Hassan, asked the defence counsel to proceed and he duly continued the cross-examination.
Amir, now 66, then said that he could not remember the date when he surrendered.
When the defence counsel showed him a photograph, Amir said that it was of a madrassah which has a graveyard and a mosque, and the structures were on land acquired by the government.
He rejected the defence counsel’s allegation that he had forcibly occupied the government’s land by constructing a madrassah, mosque and his house there.
He said that a news item headlined ‘Latbhai accused in fifty cases arrested’ might have been published in the daily Jugantar on 14 December, 2001, but it was done to prevent him from contesting the elections.
‘I was acquitted by the court in all the cases that the report mentioned,’ he said.
He said that he was appointed ward commissioner as a freedom-fighter in 1986 during Ershad’s regime.
He said that he was not aware of a General Diary lodged against him by one Safura Haque on 21 April, 2001.
The witness on August 27 testified that he lost 21 of his relatives in mass killings at Alubdi, a village at Pallabi in Dhaka, who were shot dead by Quader, his cohorts, the Pakistani occupation army and Biharis on 24 April, 1971.
He testified that about 400 people were killed in the mass killings on that day.
On 28 May, the tribunal, led by Justice ATM Fazle Kabir, indicted Quader on six counts of genocide and crimes against humanity.
Courtesy of New Age
