UNB, Dhaka :
Allowing an adjournment plea in part, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 on Monday re-fixed April 10 for hearing the contempt of court case facing by BNP chairperson’s adviser advocate Khandker Mahbub Hossain.
As the three-member tribunal, headed by Justice M Enayetur Rahim resumed, Tajul Islam, a counsel for Khandker Mahbub, moved the eight-week adjournment plea without submitting a formal petition due to personal problems of principal counsel Zainul Abedin.
Marking the defence counsel’s flaws, the tribunal raising an eyebrow asked the counsel to submit a formal petition before it in this regard as it’s a usual practice. The tribunal, however, allowed the adjournment plea in part. Responding to an ICT prosecution plea on October 6, last year, the tribunal issued a notice asking Khandker Mahbub Hossain, also vice chairman of the Bangladesh Bar Council, to explain why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against him for his alleged scandalous remarks on war crimes trial.
On October 1, immediately after the pronouncement of the ICT-1 judgment sentencing BNP policymaker Salauddin Quader Chowdhury to death for crimes against humanity, including genocide, in 1971 Liberation War, senior advocate Khandker Mahbub at a media briefing threatened to try all involved in the war crimes trial if BNP is voted to power, terming farcical the war crimes trial.
Such remarks made by a noted lawyer like Mahbub, also former president of Supreme Court Bar Association, prompted the prosecution to file an application before the tribunal seeking to take legal action against him.
Upon scrutiny of his remarks aired in electronic media and carried in the newspapers, the tribunal finds three points to serve contempt notice as it appears challenging the power of the jurisdiction of the tribunal, a deliberate threat to the judges conducting the war crimes and others involved in connection with the cases and create hatred in public mind to discredit the dispensation of justice.
