ICT disposes of contempt plea against Economist
A tribunal in Dhaka today disposed of a contempt of court proceedings against two editors of 'The Economist' on thier invilvement in hacking Skype conversation between a judge and an expatriate Bangladeshi legal expert.
The International Crimes Tribunal-1 disposed of the petition saying that it did not find any clues of hacking against them.
On December 6 last year, the tribunal issued show cause notice against Rob Gifford and Adam Roberts, chief editor and the South Asia bureau chief of the weekly, asking them to explain why contempt of court proceedings should not be taken against them for “interfering in ongoing trial and violating privacy of a judge”.
The show cause notice was issued after a person, claiming to have been from the London-based weekly, had called Justice Md Nizamul Huq, former chairman of the ICT-1, and said The Economist possessed the record of his Skype conversation with Ahmed Ziauddin, a legal expert on international crimes.
During today's proceedings, the three-member panel led by Justice Fazle Kabir also gave five observations on how a journalist will collect news while a trial of a case is going on.
According to its observations, no journalists will have the rights to communicate with any judge directly or over phone for gathering information.
The journalists will have to collect information about a case pending with the tribunal from its lawyers. If they want administrative information, they will have to contact with the registrar as he is the designated person for it.
The information that the journalists collected "illegally" will not be published, the court said.
It also asked journalists to refrain themselves from "scandalising" the court, it added.
The Skype controversy, which led to the resignation of Justice Huq on December 11, began after Bangla national daily Amar Desh published “transcript of Skype conversation” of the judge with the expatriate.
In the “transcript” of the conversation, Justice Huq was judgemental of a number of legal experts of the country and people involved in the crimes against humanity cases, according to Amar Desh.
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