BNP lawmaker Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, immediately after being sentenced to death for war crimes, said aloud in the courtroom that the judgement was an order from the ministry.
International Crimes Tribunal 1 on Tuesday handed
Salauddin death sentence in the case of crimes against humanity he had committed in Chittagong in the 1971 independence war.
Salauddin in pajama and panjabi was produced in court about 10:40am and he heard the judgement sitting in a chair sometimes in a pensive and sometimes a restive mood.
He made comments sometimes aloud, sometimes in a whisper as the judges were reading out the judgement.
As the presiding judge Justice ATM Fazle Kabir read out the sentence, Salauddin stood up in the dock and said, ‘This [the judgement] is an order from the ministry.’
The tribunal judges had, meanwhile, left the courtroom.
‘The judgement is now available on the internet for anyone to find,’ he said. ‘Thanks to the law ministry.’
The law enforcers, at this point, took Salauddin away.
Earlier when tribunal member Justice Anwarul Haque was reading out the adjudication of charge 5 against him, Salauddin said, ‘All these are now available on hotline [web sites]. They have been available for two days.’
‘The are no worth being read now,’ he said.
The tribunal member did not heed his comment and continued reading the judgement.
Later, when another tribunal member, Justice Jahangir Hossain, was reading out the judgement’s plea of alibi and by mistake said that Salauddin was lawmaker five times, Salauddin’s family and lawyers said that he was lawmaker for six times.
At this point, Salauddin said, ‘Keep five times as you are saying.’
The tribunal member stopped for a while and continued delivering judgement.
Salauddin shouted ‘No, no, no’ when the tribunal chairman was reading out a judgement chapter titled ‘The demeanour of accused Salauddin Quader Chowdhury as D.W. 1.’
The tribunal member said, ‘After closing every day’s proceeding when judges leave the courtroom as a practice, all the people present in the courtroom use to stand to pay respect to the court but the accused remained sitting on his chair, he seldom used to stand at the time of exit of the judges.’
After Salauddin had been taken away, his wife Farhat Quader Chowdhury showed a copy of the reportedly leaked judgement and said that both the leaked document and the judgement delivered were the same ‘line by line.’
She said that she had found the judgement copy on a web site on Monday and it did not have any date and the verdict part.
The nation should know how the judgement was given, she said.
Salauddin’s son Fayyaz Quader Chowdhury said that they had been denied justice.
‘We submitted 70 documents but the tribunal did not consider them. The documents were true and anyone could verify them,’ he said. ‘We will certainly move apex court against the verdict.’
He also said, ‘If you go to social networking sites, you will find the judgement.’
Salauddin’s lawyer AKM Fakhrul Islam held up a copy of the reportedly leaked judgement and showed it to reporters. He termed the verdict a ‘miscarriage of justice.’
Terming the judgement a ‘judgement from the law ministry’, he said that they would move the Appellate Division and seek a retrial.
-With New Age input
