The International Crimes Tribunal-1 on Wednesday after hearing both the sides in the war crimes case against Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, MP, said it would deliver the verdict at a later date.
Curia advisari vult, or judgement CAV, is a Latin legal term meaning ‘the court wishes to deliver the verdict at a later date. After hearing argument summaries of the case form both the prosecution and the defence the presiding judge, Justice ATM Fazle Kabir said the judgment will be kept in waiting.
‘So, the verdict is being put on CAV,’ said the presiding judge in a full court hearing attended by two other judges, Justice Md Jahangir Hossain and Justice Md Anwarul Haque.
Salauddin was in the
dock in his normal mood.
On April 4, 2012, he was indicted for 23 charges of crimes against humanity he allegedly committed in Chittagong.
Like other war crimes accused, Salauddin was tried under the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act 1973.
He was elected MP from different constituencies in Chittagong since 1979.
Salauddin, 64, is the seventh accused whose trial has been completed under the ICT Act of 1973.
Son of the then Convention Muslim League leader the late Fazlul Qader Chowdhury, Salauddin comes from Goods Hill, his paternal home in Chittagong city.
His family comes from Rauzan upazila in Chittagong district.
He said he was a student in 1971, which was contested by the prosecution.
The prosecution said it had proved 17 charges against Salauddin beyond an iota of doubt.
The prosecution presented no witness for six other charges against him.
For his highest degree of crimes against humanity he deserves the highest punishment prescribed in the law, said prosecutor Zead-Al Malum concluding his arguments on Wednesday.
Salauddin was tried for 23 counts of crimes against humanity, including genocide, murder, abduction, torture in confinement, arson attack, looting and complicity in atrocities committed during the war of independence in 1971 in Chittagong.
On Wednesday, the prosecution replied to the closing arguments of the defence.
Posecutor Sultan Mahmud Simon sought to destroy the defence alibi, prosecutor Tureen Afroz argued on legal points and prosecutor Zead-Al-Malum wrapped up the prosecution arguments.
Four defence witnesses including Salauddin himself testified to plead his innocence saying that Salauddin left the country on March 29, 1971 and came back to Bangladesh in April 1974, in other words the accused was not in the crime scenes during the liberation war and thus it was not possible for him to commit the crimes.
Prosecutor Simon submitted that the there were inconsistencies in the statements of the defence witnesses and they don’t prove the defence alibi.
He submitted that the defence witnesses could not disprove the facts presented by the prosecution.
Moreover, Simon said the prosecution witnesses successfully proved that Salauddin was present in the crime sites in 1971.
He showed that a book, written by Siru Bangali and exhibited by Salauddin’s defence, which narrates a plan of Freedom Fighters to ambush and kill Salauddin and his accomplice Wahidul Alam during the war.
‘So,’ Simon argued, ‘not only the prosecution documents and witnesses but also the defence documents prove that Salauddin was in the country during the liberation war.’
In her arguments, prosecutor Tureen Afroz said that defence raised invalid question regarding the tribunal’s jurisdiction.
She said that Salauddin took part in the crimes for which he was facing the trial.
Tureen said that most of the prosecution witnesses were victims of Salauddin’s atrocities and lost their relatives and loved ones.
‘They are the real sons of the soil,’ she said.
The prosecution produced 41 witnesses to prove the charges against Salauddin.
In his closing arguments for the seventh day, defence lawyer AKM Fakhrul Islam termed the charges fictitious and said that the prosecution witnesses had lied on oath before the tribunal and none of the charges against his client was proved.
‘My client is innocent. So, he may be acquitted from the fictitious charges,’ he said.
Defence lawyer Ahsanul Huq Hena also placed arguments on facts of the charges.
The prosecution submitted formal charges against Salauddin on November 14, 2011 and the tribunal took the charges into its cognizance on November 17, 2011.
On December 16, 2010, police arrested Salauddin at Banani in the capital in a case of torching a car at Maghbazar in the capital.
Salauddin was shown arrested in the war crimes case and brought before the Tribunal on November 02, 2010.
Salauddin was a minister in Ershad’s government in 1980s. He was also a Jatiya Party leader which he quit in the second half of the 1980s.
He founded his own party National Democratic Party and elected MP representing his party.
In the second half of 1990s he joined BNP and is now its standing committee member.
-With New Age input
