BDR mutiny trial
Lawyers not allowed to be alone with their clients
The lawyers, engaged by BDR soldiers accused of mutiny, have alleged that they cannot give their clients proper legal assistance as they are not being allowed to be alone with them.
According to Section 10A(3) of the Bangladesh Rifles Order 1972, the accused soldiers need to conduct their own defence but can engage lawyers of their choice to provide them legal assistance.
About 25 lawyers have been providing legal assistance to the soldiers who are facing trial on mutiny charges for the 25-26 February, 2009 rebellion in Pilkhana, the border guard’s headquarters in Dhaka.
‘Al least two plainclothes intelligence men remain standing beside us when we talk with our clients, hampering our legal services to the accused,’ said lawyer M Sultan Mahmud, who represents 300 accused mutineers of the 44, 24 and 13 Rifles Battalion and BDR Hospital and Rifles Sports Board.
‘Every movement of the court is being recorded, and since the intelligence agencies can monitor the lawyers through the closed-circuit television cameras, why should they remain standing beside us?’ he asked.
Ashrafuddin Khan, who represents 13 of the accused in different courts, also said that the defence lawyers could not advise their clients properly as members of the intelligence agencies always remained standing beside them during the talks.
The BDR authorities had earlier allowed the lawyers to advise their clients half an hour before and after the court’s proceedings, said a counsel of the accused.
As the lawyers advise their clients in the intervals of the proceedings, the Special Court-7’s president and the BDR’s director-general, Major General Rafiqul Islam, on November 28 asked lawyers not to talk to the accused during, but before and after, the proceedings.
Ashrafuddin on the day complained to the court that the defence counsels were not provided with enough time to advise their clients.
Ashrafuddin said that he reached the BDR gate at about 8:30am on November 29 but did not found transport in time, which delayed his arrival in the Durbar Hall where the trial is taking place.
The BDR’s director-general ahs asked the prosecutor, Shamsur Rahman, to arrange for special transport for the lawyers within the BDR headquarters so that they can get enough time to advise their clients.
The BDR’s deputy director-general, Obaydul Haque, told New Age that sometimes the intelligence men found that the lawyers give the accused certain things which are prohibited.
‘We just monitor them so that they cannot do anything offensive in the eye of law,’ he claimed.
