30 Sep 2012: Abdus Sobhan bail

Today the first session was adjourned because of the round table conversation of Supreme Court’s judges after a long vacation of 45 days.

The second session started late as well. Today Justice Jahangir Hossain was present after one week vacation. At first the chief of the Tribunal Justice Mr. Nizamul Haque gave some orders.

The first order was regarding the first prosecution witness against Motiur Rahman Nizami, Mr. Mesbaur Rahman’s cross examination. Which was postponed due to adjournment and Mr. Mesbaur Rahman was ordered to be produced on 7.10 2012.

Then defense lawyer Mr. Abdur Razzaque filed a bail petition for Abdus Sobhan on the grounds that, he is 84 years old, he is a respected citizen of Bangladesh and he is suffering from many diseases like Diabetics, Hypertension etc.

Then Mr. Nizamul Haque also gave another order on which he said that, the bail petition of Abdus Sobhan will be heard tomorrow (01.10.12) and he also needed to be produced in the court.

The defense lawyer Mr. Abdur Razzaque also prayed for the division in jail, which means getting some extra privileges rather than normal prisoners as he an honorable member of parliament and former member of provincial assemble prior to liberation. Then the Tribunal directed the prison authorities to take appropriate actions according to the jail code as far as Abdus Subhan’s division is concerned.

Then Mr. Abdur Razzaque again pointed out on two online newspaper ‘bdnews24.com’ and ‘banglanews’ to be imposed on such restrictions as was imposed on ‘Daily Shongram’ as bdnews24.com published a wrong interpretation of a witness’s deposition given against Golam Azam. Then Justice Nizamul Haque said that, ‘this is time to overlook some small news agencies as there are lots of news media in our country. He again told that we directed to ‘banglanews’ last Thursday and other correspondences of the concerned media, they should understand what is going through on our mind.’

Then the last order of the day was given by the Chief of the Tribunal that, on 04.11.2012 Abdus Sobhan is to be produced and on that day prosecution will also produce a progress report of the investigation into the role of Abdus Sobhan during the war of 1971.

Then prosecution lawyer Mr. Zead al Malum asked for camera trail for taking the deposition of the prosecution witnesss on against Abdus Subhan whose case number is ICT BD- 13/11. At first Tribunal was not interested to give the opportunity of in camera trail as Justice Nizamul Haque said that, ‘It does not look nice that I asked the present people to leave’ but later on considering the sensitivity of the case and after discussing with co-judges Mr. Nizamul Haque granted in camera trial. Defense lawyers did not show any disagreement only Mr. Mizanul Islam proposed that they are interested to keep present 3 lawyers from defense instead of two.