Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Bangladesh war crimes tribunal chairman resigns

Bangladesh state minister for law, Advocate Muhammad Qamrul Islam has confirmed that the International Crimes Tribunal 1 chairman, Justice Nizamul Huq has resigned.
'He tendered his resignation at 5pm to the Secretary to the Law Ministry. He said it was for personal reasons.' 
When he was asked whether it was to do with the Economist revelations, he said:
'I don’t know what is the actual ground. Any other ground he did not express.'

When asked what will happen now to the tribunal, he said:
'We are appointing a new chairman within tomorrow or day after.
When asked whether there was a problem with the Sayedee case continuing since no judge has heard the whole case, he said:
The Sayedee case will continue. There is no problem' 
For the last three days the Bangladesh newspaper has published transcripts of the Skype conversations which the chairman had with the Bangladesh original Brussels based law academic Ziauddin Ahmed.

More to come .......

2 comments:

  1. Justice Nizamul quits war crimes tribunal
    What led to his resignation?
    ICT chairman lost credibility: legal experts

    Senior lawyers of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh express that the Chairman of the International Crimes Tribunal Nizamul Huq has lost his jurisdiction to hand down any verdict.

    “We have frequently said that the tribunal is not conducting the trial following any international standard. It’s only government’s agenda they are following and the trial has turned into a total mockery. The tribunal is heading towards materializing the agenda of the government instead of awarding fair and credible verdict. We have expected that the tribunal would conduct credible trials as the chairman and other two members of the tribunal are judges of the High Court of Bangladesh. But the recent developments mentioned in the London based The Economist clearly shows that the Chairman himself has admitted the fact”, added Mr Hossain.
    “We have said it from the very beginning that we are not against the trial of the war crimes trials. But we have only demanded that the trial should not be conducted for materializing political vendetta. We asked for transparency and following international standards. But government has intentionally labeled us as “supporters of the war criminals”. Marking us as anti-liberation force, the government didn’t pay heed to our demands”, remarked Mr Hossen.
    President of the Supreme Court Bar Association and senior lawyer Advocate Jainul Abedin says if the news report of the leading international publication The Economist and of the Bangla national daily are correct, the judge should resign from his post immediately. “In no way, he should continue as a judge of any court. He has breached the oath. He should leave the judiciary permanently”, said Mr Abedin.

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  2. This is really a burning question whether or not SAYDEE's case will go forward as no one of the judges heard the whole case. Answer of the state minister of Law
    "The Sayedee case will continue. There is no problem"
    is not a wise response as he is not the person running the cases, its court who will decide everything. By answering that way they are damaging the credibility of the court.
    Hope they will understand that.

    ReplyDelete