21 Oct 2012: Tribunal further warning on witnesses

After the end of the cross examination of the 13th defense witness, the following interchange took place between the tribunal chairman and the defense lawyers, which is summarized below

Chairman: So Mizanul Islam you do not have any further defense witnesses.

Mizanul Islam: not for today. One defense witness is coming tonight. If he comes then we will bring him tomorrow.

Chairman: we have already passed order on last occasion that if you fail to bring the remaining all DWs today then Defence would be debarred from calling them anymore and no further adjournment would be allowed. That order still stands and we do not need to pass any further order on this issue.

Razzak: You allowed nine months for the prosecution case. But you are forcing to close defence case in one and half month. You should allow us reasonable chance to prove our case.

Chairman: the defence is given sufficient time. We have already passed an order on 18th October that no further adjournment would be allowed. That order still stands.

Razzaq: We have filed an application for recall of that order. You should here us on that application.

Chairman: no, we will pass order in our chamber. We do not need to hear you.

Razzaq: you should consider that we have no right to file any appeal against your order. Your order is final. So before passing any order you should hear us.

Chairman: We have passed our order.

Razzaq: We have not yet received certified copy of that order. We have right to review your order.

Chairman: we will not give any certified copy of any order in future.

Razzaq: why you are getting angry? You should not pass any order being angry.

Chairman: we will stop giving certified copy of orders.

Razzak: if you pass order in chamber and do not give us certified copy of the order how we will know fate of an application.

Chairman: defense is filing these applications for delay and we should not waste time hearing these applications.

Razzaq: there was no reasonable ground to pass the order of debarring us from calling any further DW on 18th October. We had defense witness number 13 on that day and you recorded him throughout that day. We had no fault and despite that you passed the order of debarring the DWs. You were not sitting idle on 18th October.

Chairman:  it is not matter whether we were sitting idle. We passed that order and that still stands. If we think in future to review that order then we will think. But for now that order stands.

Razzaq: please give us opportunity to call the remaining defense witnesses. They are being threatened and they became traceless. We have detailed this in our application.

Chairman: order has been passed.

Razzaq:  We hope you will hear us before you act upon your order.

Chairman: tomorrow.

16 Oct 2012: Sayedee 13th defense witness, day 3

The tribunal started with the case of Sayedee (following on from here)

Chairman: Mr. Mizanul Islam, you are supposed to present the names of the defense witnesses in Sayedee and Azam's case

Mizanul Islam: We will submit it. I have something to say before your Lordship. We watching the great rush in these cases, but we can’t see what is the point actually. Even many of the media and newspapers are mentioning that there is a possibility of the conclusion of some of the Trials by December. Even some of the media have referred to the Registrar in these comment.

Justice Jahangir Hossain: It is our request to the Prosecution, Defence and even towards the Ministers that, please don’t say anything about the Tribunal which may raise any sorts of ambiguity. Even one of the learned members of the Prosecution has mentioned that-one of the trials may conclude within this December. But this is not really expected. It is unfortunate to hear such sorts of words. Don’t make any ambiguous comments about the process. We are not following by any dateline. The prosecutors should be careful in making any public comment. With regard to the comment of the Register I can say that he only said ‘may be’.


Masood Sayedee took his place in the witness box.

Defence: The first page and second page of the Daily Janata of 22-3-2012 contains a report. [this reported that the prosecution witnesses were available and the prosecution deliberately was not bringing them as they are not ready to support the statements submitted by the IO in their names.]

Chairman: This report has stated that the Prosecution has wrongly submitted some documents. But our question is whether any newspaper got the authority to criticize on this point? Who are they to fix which is wrong or right? We will not take the report. It is totally the interference on the judicial process.

Mizanul Islam denied this. He said that this is a report which shows that the prosecution was telling lies about the whereabouts of the prosecution; that on 20th March, the prosecution filed the 19(2) application claiming that 46 PWs including Shahrier Kabir and Jewel Eich were unavailable. This reporter went to Shahrier Kabir and Jewel Eich who denied being a prosecution witness and also denied giving any statement to the investigation officer. But he submitted statements in their names. This news report is relevant to the credibility of the IO. This news report is also relevant to our Safe House documents. You put the burden of proving the Safe House documents on us. If you do not allow us to exhibit this newspaper how we can prove the safe house documents. We are only presenting the information which have been concealed when the Prosecution has presented the application under section-19(2) of the ICT Act- 1973. But the Tribunal has said that- the burden of proof is on the head of the defence. The Prosecution has also disregarded the existence of the Register book also. I am stating that- the statements of those 15 witnesses have not been recorded even. And the Prosecution has applied under section- 19(2) of the ICT Act- 1973 with an ill motive.
Chairman asked how can you be sure about that? Prove that.

Mizanul Islam said that the defense have found from the interview of the 3 of the witnesses given on the television channel that, they are not even concerned about the matter. So, we are stating that the statements have not even been recorded.

Chairman said that this news report is about Shahrier Kabir and Jewel Eich. They are not 19(2) witnesses. Mizanul Islam responded that they were in the prosecution’s 19(2) application.

The chairman said I can remember that at the time of passing order on the prosecutions 19(2) application we condemned these types of investigative journalism about a pending issue in trial. At that time Mr. Abdur Razzaq apologized for the journalists and said that the journalist would not make any such report in future. So you have disowned this news report at that time. How you can rely upon them now?

Mizanul Islam: Mr. Razzaque has not stated anything about the Daily Janata.

Tanvir Ahmed Alamin: My Lord, we have presented the newspaper on 9th May, 2012 whereas you have passed the order on 29th March for the other reports published on 22nd March.

Chairman: The content of all the newspapers are same. Mr. Mizanul Islam you could go to the next question.

Mizanul Islam: My Lord, let the question be pending for our senior counsel to solve.

Chairman: You may do it. Okay proceed.

Witness: The page-1- column- 2 and page-13- column- 3 contains a report which has been published on 12-4-2012 on Daily Amar Desh which is to be counted as the material exhibit number- AW.

The Daily Janata published on 24-4-2012 on page- 1- column-2 and page-2- column- 5 contains a report to be counted as material exhibit number- AX.

The photocopies of the phone bills of the Safe house containing the number- 7547804, 7547801, 7547807 are submitted to be counted as the material exhibit number- AY, AY1 and AY2.

The Warishan certificate of Late Binodbihari Chakrabarti by the Chairman of Parerhat-1 is counted to be material exhibit number- AZ.

The photocopy of the Prosecution reports about threatening a witness of Pirojpur, about which a case has been filed on the Pirojpur Police Station- Diary no- 1078 dated- 24-3-2010 have been submitted to be counted as the material exhibit numbers-BA, BA1,BA2.

The defense witness then wanted to exhibit the following news reports .

(1) News report of the Daily Sangram dated 24.03.2012 reporting that the proposed PWs of 19(2) refused giving any statement to the Investigation Officer and are not willing to give false evidence against the Accused (filed as Annexure – A Series of the ‘Reply to the Prosecution’s Section 19(2) Application’ – filed on 28th March 2012)

(2) News report of the Daily Amar Desh dated 25.03.2012 reporting that the proposed PWs of 19(2) refused giving any statement to the Investigation Officer and are not willing to give false evidence against the Accused (filed as Annexure – A Series of the ‘Reply to the Prosecution’s Section 19(2) Application’ – filed on 28th March 2012

(3) News report of the Daily Naya Diganta dated 27.03.2012 reporting that the proposed PWs of 19(2) refused giving any statement to the Investigation Officer and are not willing to give false evidence against the Accused (filed as Annexure – A Series of the ‘Reply to the Prosecution’s Section 19(2) Application’ – filed on 28th March 2012),

The chairman said that these news reports cannot be exhibited for the reasons said earlier. We are sorry. These are regarding pending proceeding before the Tribunal. So they cannot be exhibited.

Mizanul Islam said that it is very frustrating. I have evidence to discredit the IO (PW 28). But you are not allowing me to prove this.

At this moment the defence counsel in the case of Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury has appeared before the dock and Zead Al Malum has also stood beside him and stated that the Prosecution witness is not present. Then the defence counsel has prayed before the Lordship to hear the matter on next week and the Tribunal has consented to record further prosecution witness on 22-10-2012.

Witness: On 08-11-2011 the Police Inspector Amjad Hossain has recorded a GD entry No. 491, 492 by the Officer in Charge of Safe House alleging a telephone threat against Prosecution witness- 1 has been threatened.

The chairman said that these are photocopies of the general diaries. Cannot be exhibited.

Defence lawyer said we need to exhibit these documents to prove our Safe House documents. In the safe house document it is recorded that the officer in charge have reported an incidents of telephone threat to prosecution one while staying in the Safe House to the Jatrabari Police Station, Dhaka. The prosecution is claiming that the Safe House documents do not exist. The Defence have collected these GD No. 491 and 492 from the Jatra Bari Police Station to prove that the Safe House documents exist.

Chairman said that I warn you, these GDs will go against you. They are about threatening the prosecution witness. We will presume that these threats were from the Accused side.

The defense lawyer said how you can presume this. The GDs do not disclose any such fact.

Chairman said that where there is a threat to a PW, we will automatically presume that this is from the Accused.

Defence lawyer said that presumption is a legal issue. You cannot come to a presumption without any basis.

Chairman said we may allow these GDs to be exhibited, but we will keep a note that despite warning the defence lawyers they have exhibited these documents and they should take all responsibilities of exhibiting this document.

The lawyer asked why the chairman was keeping a note for these GDs only.

The chairman said that so that you can be found responsible if these documents are found to be forged. Think carefully and then decide.

Justice Jahangir Hossain: Might be it is better not to submit this document from the defence side, because the liability of threatening a Prosecution witness might fall on their shoulder afterwards. And about the objection we would like to say that the Tribunal might take the note of anything which it thinks fit.

Tanvir Ahmed Alamin: As the burden of proof is on the defence’s shoulder so the defence may submit the required materials.

Mizanul Islam: My Lord, one matter is already pending in our case. Let this matter be pending with that matter.

Chairman: Okay.

The Tribunal was adjourned till 2 P.M.

After lunch the Abdur Razzaq made an application relating to the Golam Azam trial.

Then the defense lawyers said that they have decided in the Sayedee case that the GDs should be exhibited.

The chairman responded that then we will keep a note about your responsibility for submitting these documents and e will ask certain question to the DW.

Razzaq said you may certainly ask questions to the defense witness. But why would you want to keep a note in the deposition of DW. This is unusual.

The chairman said that the defense should satisfy the tribunal about the genuineness and existence of these documents. We should find out how you get these documents.

Razzaq said that prosecution also exhibited a large number of photocopied documents, but ou never kept a note about those documents. Why do you want to keep note for a defence documents. If you do not believe these documents then you may not consider them in your judgment. During our argument we will satisfy you about the probative value and genuineness of these documents. You should not keep any note about these documents.

Chairman then said that another danger is that if the documents are found to be forged then the lawyers should take responsibility.

Razzaq said that this document is preventing us proving our case. If you do not co-operate then how we can prove our case. Time will come when we will prove that these documents are genuine.

The GDs were exhibited and the tribunal keep a note that – ‘At the time of exhibiting the photocopies of the GDs we informed that they should think about the genuineness and responsibility on these documents and after thinking about this they replied that they want to exhibit these documents’

Chairman then asked some questions to the witness

Tribunal’s question: The photocopies of GD entry which you submitted in the Tribunal who told you that these were the true copy of GD entry? 

Witness: Nobody told me that, I understood from the face of it. 

Tribunal’s question: How did you know that the GD entry was filed in the Police Station?
Witness: After scrutinizing the documents of ‘Safe House’ my elder brother Rafique bin Saidee collected the photocopies of those GD entries.

Tribunal’s question: Do you know from where did he collect it? 

Witness: I heard from him that he collected it from the Munsi (person working in police station) and I also heard that if the GD entry numbers can be provided they can give the photocopy of it.

Then the tribunal moved back to exhibiting the Safe House Documents (1) Attendance Register, (2) General Diary Book and (3) Food Book. 

The chairman said that he cannot exhibit these documents. He should first explain how he got these documents.

Witness: On 12th April 2012 the Daily Amar Desh reported about these Safe House Documents. Then I contacted him and collected these documents from him.

Chairman said no he cannot exhibit those document. The concerned journalist may come as a defense witness. He said that at the time of exhibiting a documents some conditions need to be satisfied like relevance of the documents and whether a document is collected though legal process or not.

Mizanul Islam said that there is no dispute about relevancy of these documents. In case of prosecution you allowed them to exhibit documents when they could not explain how they got it. 19(1) does not provide for any requirement that a document need to be legally obtained.

Chairman said that we have been very liberal in the Sayedee case. You should not waste this opportunity.

Razzaq responded by saying that but the liberalism should apply for both parties. In a decision of our Appellate Division it was observed that even if a document is stolen it can be admitted if it is relevant.

Chairman said that we will not allow exhibiting these safe house documents through this witness. There are other available ways to prove the safe house registers.

Razzaq said how can the defense do this? A hand writing expert will not give any opinion on these documents since they are photocopies. We tried to call the relevant person as Court witness and then as defense witness. But you rejected those prayer saying that you would not issue summon on those witnesses. We have contacted with those Safe House officers and they are not ready to come to tribunal without Summons. Now you are not allowing us to exhibit these Safe House documents. You are closing all our ways to prove these Safe House documents. How we can prove them?

Chairman replied that 'this is upto you. The order is passed.

At one point the Chairman allowed the witness to say that he had seen the registers. Witness then stated that he had seen the witness safe house records that had all the details of witness movements. He said Ashish Kumar Mondol (a prosecution witness), his mother and another witness Somor Mistry were at the witness house until March.

The next item was the photocopy of the voter list published in 07/10/1995 where the name of Md. Alamgir Poshari son of Alhajj Soifuddin Poshari, Village- Chitoliya was written. I submitted it here and it was marked as exhibit no- BJ.

Then some material exhibit

i) The video clipping of the speech which was given by the Investigation Officer of this case Mr. Helaluddin towards the local people at the time of investigation.

ii) Two video clippings of interview of  a) Usha Rani Malakar: b) Sukharanjan: c) Ganesh Chandra Saha and d) Chan Mia Poshari which was telecasted in Diganta Television and Islamic Television of Bangladesh on 11/05/12 and 05/05/12?

This was the end of his deposition.

Cross Examination by the prosecutor Haider Ali of the witness then started

Haider Ali: When did you get exhibit A? 

Witness: Around 1 year ago. 

Haider Ali: Before you got it, who possessed this? 

Witness: Sitara Begum. 

Haider Ali: When did you apply for the document and when did you get this? 

Witness: I don’t know.

9 Oct 2012: Sayedee safe house witness order

At the beginning of the morning hearing, the Chairman first passed an order relating to the application concerning witnesses in Sayedee. Summary below.

The application is disposed of subject to the following observations:

i. The defense is authorized to bring witnesses as they wish. They can bring those witnesses (mentioned in the Application) but it must be within the limit of 20 defense witnesses.

ii. The Tribunal will not issue summons upon those witnesses. If the defence wants to bring any of those witnesses then it is upto them to arrange attendance of those witnesses in the Tribunal.

iii. According to Section 8 (1) of the 1973 Act the members of the investigation agencies are to assist the prosecution in the trial. So the defence cannot bring any of the persons of the Investigation Agencies persons as defense witness if objected by the Prosecution.

iv. The defense may bring the person as defense witness from whom these documents were collected.

In relation to Gholam Azam the order also stated that within 14-10-2012 the defence is required to submit the 12 names of the defence witnesses.

The tribunal then made another order in relation to the admissibility of evidence. It stated that - in summary:

Application allowed and the additional document volume 12 may be exhibited. But these documents need to be exhibited through defence witnesses.

8 Oct 2012: Sayedee safe house witness summons

See main 8 October application page

Sayedee safe house witness application

The tribunal heard an application from the defense requesting that the tribunal summons witnesses relating to the safe house register issue. This was argued by Abdur Razzaq. The written application is set out below:

1. In this application, the Accused-Petitioner prays for issance of summon upon the persons listed in Schedule X of this applicaion and direct them to attend and testify in the instant case as Defence Witnesses as the same is necessary to discover and prove relevent facts raised during trial of the instant case.

Background of the Application: -
2. On 20th March 2012 the Prosecution filed an application pursuant to Section 19 (2) of the Act in order to tender into evidence the statements of the Prosecution witnesses who could not be produced before the Tribunal for giving evidence (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Prosecution’s Section 19(2) Application’). In the said Application the Prosecution annexed two reports of the Investigation Officer (‘IO’) dated 17.03.2012 and 19.03.2012 to show that the Prosecution Witnesses were unavailable and their attendance could not be procured without an amount of unreasonable delay or expense.

3. On 28th March 2012 the Accused-Petitioner replied to the Prosecution’s Section 19(2) Application stating that the prosecution witnesses were available and the IO and the Prosecution were deliberately not bringing them before the Tribunal as they were not ready to give false evidence against the Accused-Petitioner.

4. On 29th March 2012, the Hon’ble Tribunal relied upon the abvoe two reports of the IO and passed an order under section 19(2) of the ICTA 1973 allowing to receive in evidence the statements of 15 Prosecution Witnesses (PWs) alleged to have been recorded by the Investigation Officer (hereinafter referred to as ‘the section 19(2) order’). The 15 PWs are (1) Usharani Malaker, (2) Suhhraranian Bali, (3) Ashish Kumar Mondal, (4) Sumati Rani Mondal, (5) Somar Mistri, (6) Suresh Chandra Mondal, (7) Ganesh Chandra Saha, (8) Shahidul Islam Khan Selim, (9) Md. Ayul AIi Howlader, (10) Sitara Begum, (11) Rani Begurn, (12) Md. Mostafa, (13) Abdul Latif Howlder, (14) Anil Chandra Mondal and (15) Ajit Kurnar Shil.

5. On 9th May 2012 the Accused-Petitioner filed an Application for Reveiw of the section 19(2) order (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Review Application’). In the Review Application the Accused-Petitioner stated that the Investigation Agency had practiced fraud upon this Hon’ble Tribunal and the prosecution had misled the Hon’ble Tribunal by falsely stating that the PWs were not available. In fact the 15 PWs were in the Safe House maintained for keeping the prosecuiton witnesses and therefore in control of the Investigation Agency and were available to give evidence before the Tribunal. The Accused-Petitioner annexed a news report of Daily Amar Desh dated 12th April 2012 to support his claim (Annexure – X of the Review Application). It has been reported in the said news report that the three registers namely, (i) Safe House General Diary, (ii) PWs’ Attendance Register and (iii) the Food Register of the Witness all maintained in the Safe House show that most of these PWs came to the Witness Safe House in Dhaka on several occassions for giving evidence. But they were not produced before this Tribunal since they did not agree to give false evidence against the Accused-Petitioner.

6. On 22nd May 2012 this Hon’ble Tribunal heard the Defence Counsels on the Review Application when TV interview of some of the PWs played before the Tribunal showing that these PWs were not unavailable as claimed by the prosecution. Moreover these PWs denied giving any statement against the Accused-Petitioner to the Investigation Officer. Thereafter on 23rd May 2012 the Prosecution argued against the Review Application when this Hon’ble Tribunal asked the Prosecution to file a written reply to the Review Application.

7. On 30th May 2012 the prosecution filed a Written Ojbection claiming the said news report of the Daily Amar Desh dated 12th April 2012 was baseless (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Written Objection’). In the Written Objection the Prosecution claimed that the witness Safe House does not maintain any General Diary, PWs’ Attendance Register and the Food Register of the Witness as reported in the news report of the Daily Amar Desh.

8. On 3rd June 2012 the Accused-Petitioner filed a Reply to the Prosecution’s Written Objection (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Accused’s Reply’) stating that there were PWs’ Attendance Register, General Diary Book and the Food Register in the Witness Safe House. The Reply included a bundle of 497 pages documents containing the Prosecution Witness Attendance Register, the General Diary Book, the Food Register, which were maintained by the Witness Safe House in Dhaka. These were joined to the Reply as Annexures A, B and C. All three Annexures prove conclusively as to the specific date and time of arrivals and departures of the Prosecution witnesses, the duration of their stay, name of the accompanying persons and the details of the meals they have taken at the Safe House. These Annexures therefore conclusively proves the presence of the PWs on various dates in the Safe House.

9. That the prosecution claimed that these Annexures were manufactured by the Defence.

10. On the 7th June 2012 the Accused-Petitioner filed an application to call for record to confirm the mobile numbers and badge numbers of the Police Constables/Officers in the Witness Safe House and the authenticity of the information recorded in the diary notes of the General Diary Book of the Witness Safe House.

11. It is submitted that these Annexures revealed that the IO and the Proseuction had committed fruad upon this Hon’ble Tribunal and thereby perverted the course of justice. On 11th June 2012 the Accused-Petitioner filed another application to draw up proceedings against the Investigation Officer under section 11(4) Act and issue an order for discharge of the Accused-Petitioner and a direction for fresh investigation.

12. On the same date i.e. on 11th June 2012 the Prosecution filed a Reply to the Accused’s Reply (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Prosecution’s Reply’) wherein the prosecution reiterated their earlier claim that the witness Safe House did not maintain any PW Attendence Register, General Diary Book and Food Book. The Prosecution claimed that Annexures A, B and C of the Accused’s Reply were concocted.

13. Thereafter on 12th July 2012 this Hon’ble Tribunal rejected the Reveiw Application on the ground inter alia that the prosecution has denied the documents submitted by the defence in support of the Review Application (i.e. Annexures A, B and C of the Accused’s Reply). This Hon’ble Tribunal also observed that it would not adjudicate on the genuineness of the documents submitted by the Defence with the Review Application at that stage. It also observed that the Defence might take steps to prove those documents at the time of trial and that the onus of proving those documents was upon the defence.

14. That thereafter on 19th July 2012 this Honble Tribunal also rejected the other applications, namely (1) an application for call for record to confirm the mobile numbers and badge numbers of the Police Constables/Officers in the Witness Safe House and the authenticity of the information recorded in the diary notes of the General Diary Book of the Witness Safe House and (2) the application to draw up proceedings against the Investigation Officer under section 11(4) Act and issue an order for discharge of the Accused-Petitioner and a direction for fresh investigation. It is stated that the Tribunal rejected the above two applications on the ground that the three registers of the safe house (i.e. the PW attendance Register, General Diary Book and hte Food Register) had been denied by the prosecution and it was the obligation of the Accused-Petitioenr to prove them during trial.

15. That in view of the above findings and observations of the Honble Tribunal the onus is now upon the Accused-Petitioner to prove the contents of the PW Attendence Register, General Diary Book and Food Register of the Safe House (i.e. Annexures A, B and C of the Accused’s Reply) during trial. It is emphatically stated that the safe house officials listed in Schedule - X are the persons who are in a position to prove the Safe House Registers.

16. As such on 22nd July 2012 the Accused Petitioner filed an Application for issuance of summon upon the persons listed in Schedule X of this application, who have performed their duties in the safe house, and direct them to attend and testify in the instant case as Court Witnesses under section 10(1)(h) read with section 11(1)(a) of the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act 1973 and Rule 48 of the International Crimes Tribunal Rules of Procedure, 2010. On 29th July 2012 the Hon’ble Tribunal heard the application and ordered the same to be kept in record. Since that application has not been allowed, and the trial is almost coming to an end, the accused \petitioner considered that application has been rejected by this Hon’ble Tribunal for all intents and purposes.

17. It is submitted that sufficient opportunity should be given to the Accused-Petitioner to prove the contents of the three registers o the Safe House by calling necessary and relevant witnesses. It is further submitted that the persons named in Schedul X are relevant witnesses without whose testimoney the contents of the three registers of the Safe House cannot be proved. They are necessary witnesses who have direct knowledge of the contents of those registers. It is also submitted that without calling those persons as witnessess it will be simply impossible for the Accused-Petitioner to prove the contents of the three registers of the Safe House because they acted as Inspector, Sub-inspectors, constables and perform other duties in the Safe House, as listed in Schedule X of this Application.

18. That in the premises the Accused Petitioner has no other alternative but to call the Safe House Officials listed in Schedule X as defence witnesses.

Legal Basis of the Application:
19. Section 11(1) (a) of the Act provides as follows–
“A Tribunal shall have power-
(a) to summon witnesses to the trial and to require their attendance and testimony and to put questions to them;”

20. Rule 48 of the Rules of Procedure provides as follows –
“1) The Tribunal may, at any stage of trial of a case, summon any person as a witness, or examine any person in attendance, though not summoned as a witness, or re-call and re-examine any person already examined.
2) The Tribunal shall summon and examine or re-call and re-examine any such person if his evidence appears to it essential to the just decision of the case.”

21. Moreover Rule 46A of the Rules of Procedure provides as follows –
“Nothing in these Rules shall be deemed to limit or otherwise affect the inherent power of the Tribunal to make such order(s) as may be necessary to meet the ends of justice or to prevent abuse of the process.”

22. It is submitted that Section 11(1)(a) of the Act read with Rule 48 of the Rules of Procedure empowers the Tribunal to issue summons to the persons listed in Schedule X of this Applicaion and direct them to attend and testify in the instant case as defence witnesses to discover and prove relevant facts raised during the trial. Moreover in view of Rule 46A these persons should be summoned as defence witnesses for ends of justice, otherwise the Accused Petitioner will be highly prejudiced and consequently will be prevented from proving his case.

Wherefore it is most humbly prayed that the Hon’ble Tribunal would be pleased to issue summons upon the persons listed in Schedule X of this applicaion and direct them to attend and testify in the instant case as defence witnesses and pass any further order(s) as it may deem fit and proper.

Schedule – ‘X’

List of the persons in different duties of the Safe House

SL	Names of the Witnesses	Duties in the Safe House	Phone Number
01.	Hannan Khan, Chief Investigation Officer, International Crimes Tribunal (ICT)	Being the Chief Investigation Officer of ICT, the Safe House and its Registers were under his supervision and control.	01712526910, 9347156
02.	Abdur Rahim, Additional IGP, related to ICT	Being the Additional IGP, related to ICT, the Safe House and its Registers were under his control	01711544771
03.	Inspector Obaidullah	Inspector Admin of Head Office (Baily Road) who was in charge to lesion with the Safe House.	01819490267
04.	Inspector Amzad Hossain, Son of Late Moksed Ali, Bangladesh Police Number (BP No) - 5885009250	Officer-in-Charge of the Safe House	01716211437
05.	Sub-Inspector Kalachand Gosh, son of Amullo Roton Gosh, BP No. 6281028661	In regular duty of the Safe House as Sub-Inspector	01712177460
06.	Sub-Inspector Abdullah Al Baki, Son of Afsar Uddin Prodhan, BP No. 6179008850	In regular duty of the Safe House as Sub-Inspector	01945652751
07.	Constable Masum Sheikh, son of Abu Bokkor Sheikh, BP No. 8607121306, Constable Number (C No.) -  24254	In regular duty of the Safe House as Constable	01913163433
08.	Constable Shah Jamal, Son of Munshi Sirajul Islam, BP No. 7501021108, C No. 5511	In regular duty of the Safe House as Constable
09.	Constable Talukder Muniruzzaman, son of Alimuzzaman, BP No. 801041923 C No. 25278	In regular duty of the Safe House as Constable	01725044312
10.	Constable Sohel Rana, son of Monjur Hosen Mia, BP No. 8605105783, C No. 6983	In regular duty of the Safe House as Constable	01725175903
11.	Constable Jamal Uddin, C No. 10952	In regular duty of the Safe House as Constable	01913163433
12.	Constable Mohiuddin Molla, C No. 28218	In regular duty of the Safe House as Constable	01714985516
13.	Constable Robiul Islam, Son of Hemayet Hossen, BP No. 8493090313, C No. 19350	In regular duty of the Safe House as Constable	01735054649
14.	Constable Tuhin Parvez, son of Late Sheikh Khanjahan Ali, C No. 28588	In regular duty of the Safe House as Constable
15	Constable Mehedi Hasan, C No. 24176	In regular duty of the Safe House as Constable
16	Constable Sree Prodip Sorkar, Son of Ram Mohon Sorkar, BP No. 8605101908, C No. 27123	In regular duty of the Safe House as Constable	01920123268
17	Ladis Constable Rina Akther, C No. 15013	In regular duty of the Safe House as Constable
18	Inspector (Arms) Md. Abdul Hai Molla	Joined Safe House on 3.11.2011 according to office order  (¯§viK bs e`jx/21-011(Ask)/8890/AviI) dated 03.11.2011	01736591027
19	Sub-Inspector (AB) Md. Mojibur Rahman (No. 11587), Special CC No. 185/11, dated 05.11.2011	Joined Safe House on 05.11.2011 as per the above office order	01915234079
20	Habilder Kashinath Goshami (no. 27193) Special CC No. 85/11, dated 04.11.2011	Joined Safe House on 05.11.2011 as per the above office order
21	Nayek Sri Chondon Kumar (No. 14224) Special CC No. 188/11, dated 05.11.2011	Joined Safe House on 05.11.2011 as per the above office order
22	Nayek Ad. Ayub Ali (No. 3449), Special CC No. 188/11, dated 05.11.2011	Joined Safe House on 05.11.2011 as per the above office order
23	Constable Bahadur Ali (C No. 19046) Special CC No. 188/11, dated 05.11.2011	Joined Safe House on 05.11.2011 as per the above office order
24	Constable Md. Shamim Hossen (C No. 25209), Special CC No. 186/11, dated 05.11.2011	Joined Safe House on 05.11.2011 as per the above office order
25	Constable Md. Taslim Sultan (C No. 28846), Special CC No. 189/11, dated 13.11.2011	Joined Safe House on 13.11.2011 as per the above office order
26	Constable Sri Liton Chondro (C No. 7713), Special CC No. 187/11, dated 05.11.2011	Joined Safe House on 05.11.2011 as per the above office order
27	Sub-inspector Enamul Haq, CC No. 144/11 dated 20.11.2011	Joined Safe House on 20.11.2011 as per the General Diary Book	01727787198
28	Md. Enayet Hossen (P.N. 2146)	Fireman worked in Safe House on 21.11.2011
29	Inspector (Arms) Md. Sayed Shafikul Islam	Joined Safe House on 01.12.2011 as per CC No. 7806/RO(Head Office) dated 27.11.2011
30	Inpector Rofiqul Islam (incharge), City SB, Demra Zone	Connected with the Safe House as per the General Diary Book	01730024126
31	Sub-Inspector Samsur Rahman, City SB, Demra Zone	Connected with the Safe House as per the General Diary Book	01916607666
32	Sub-Inspector, Moazzem Hossen Khan	Connected with the Safe House as per the General Diary Book	01733567404
33	Jafor Iqbal	Driver of Safe House	01913754999
34	Md. Delwar	Dirver of Safe House	01919410082
35	Golam Rosul	Cook of the Safe House	01557648536
36	Yesuf	Engineer of Concord for renovation of the Safe Hosue	01913531510 88140228
37	Sub-Inspector Mazharul Islam, Jatrabari Police Station	Connected with the Safe House as per the General Diary Book	01711369486 01191003333
38	Ronju Ahmed, Officer of Public Works Department	Supplied furnitures to the Safe House

Razak said: in the order of our 19(2) review application this Tribunal has asked us to prove the Safe House Registers. We wanted to call the officials of the Safe House as Court Witnesses. But you passed an order to keep that application in record. So that application was not allowed. On that occasion you told us that we could try to bring hand writing experts to prove the safe house registers. We have contacted with hand writing experts and none of them are ready to give any expert opinion as the documents are photocopies. They can give opinion only on original documents. So we have no other option but to call these safe house officials as DWs. There are 38 officials of the Safe house as listed in schedule X of the application. We want all of them in the witness doc so that we can prove the Safe House Registers.

Chairman has asked if all the 38 witnesses are required to be present. He has also stated that the defence has already got the order to produce 20 defence witnesses, so the further witness would have to be confined within this number. Abdur Razzaque has stated. This is totally a different issue, a different category of witness. they would be asked a question about the safe house. Chairman has again stated the number of the DW has been fixed on 20.

Register of safe house

Then Defence lawyer Tanvir Ahmed Alamin has stated about the next petition- where he has prayed to count the register book of the safe house and other documents as the defence documents. The Tribunal has granted the petition by saying that- these are to be proved.