The prosecution in the trial of Mobarak Hossain, alias Mobarak Ali, on Wednesday was taken aback as they failed to give explanations to many questions raised by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT)-1.
The tribunal than set May 27 for further arguments in the trial and asked the prosecution to appear with the reply it inquired. Yesterday was fixed for submitting arguments on the law points by the defence counsel in the trial of Mobarak, charged with committing crimes against humanity during the War of Liberation. Advocate Tajul Islam, counsel for Mobarak, submitted legal points and said this case is nothing but an evil attempt to convict his client, adding, “He is a victim of the conspiracy.” After conclusion of the defence arguments, prosecutor Md Shahidur Rahman stood at 11.30am for giving his rebuttal and from that moment he fell before barrage of questions from the tribunal that made him almost dumfounded.
Justice M Enayetur Rahim, chairman of three-member panel of ICT-1, at first drew the attention of the prosecutor to the fact that he submitted a big volume of documents of about 170 pages, but referred only 10 or 15 pages before the court. “Why you had given so many documents? What you have done here is, as the investigation agency handed over the documents to you, you just rendered it before the tribunal without even properly going through those documents” the tribunal chairman said.
Justice Rahim also showed how an investigation officer left a footnote on a page of the prosecution documents, for the concerned prosecutor, but the prosecutor produced the documents including that page before the tribunal and also to the defence, without even erasing the footnote.
The tribunal couple of days ago asked the prosecutor to make a call to the office of the deputy commissioner of Brahmanbaria to confirm about the source of a list of Razakars, supplied by them. Today, when the tribunal reminded the prosecutor about that direction, Shahidur was barely able to stammer and reply in the negative.
The tribunal also pointed out to what seems to be a clerical mistake, where there are two versions of time in formal charge and in the charges that were framed against the accused. The prosecutor with the help of his senior Syed Haider Ali than said he will submit a petition for making the necessary correction. The ICT-1 than adjourned the hearing till May 27 for further summing up arguments.
The prosecution on February 25, 2013, submitted the formal charge against Mobarak and the ICT-1 on March 12 on the same year, took the charges into cognizance.
The ICT-1 on April 23, 2013, indicted Mobarak on five charges of crimes against humanity.
A total of 12 prosecution witnesses have testified against Mobarak, whereas the accused himself and his eldest son testified as the two defence witnesses.
