Many hurdles before the verdict
The judgment of Motiur Rahman Nizami is going to be delivered nearly a year after the completion of the trial proceedings, which went through different hurdles, including tribunal reconstitution, rehearing of closing arguments and deferment of the verdict.
Nizami, ameer since November 2000 of Jamaat which fought tooth and nail against the birth of Bangladesh, has already been given death penalty in the sensational 10-truck arms haul case in January this year.
Fixing the date of verdict at 11:03 yesterday, Justice M Enayetur Rahim, the chairman of the ICT-1, directed the jail authorities to produce Nizami before the court by 10:30am today [Wednesday] “positively”.
The word “positively” reminds the incident of June 24, when the all-set tribunal had been compelled to defer Nizami's verdict as the jail authority didn't produce the accused citing his “sickness” on the day, frustrating thousands of justice seekers.
Following the order, Nizami was shifted from Kashimpur jail to Dhaka Central Jail around 8:00pm. There, jail doctors conducted a health check-up and found him sound, Farman Ali, senior jail super of Dhaka jail, told The Daily Star last night.
Nizami, president of the then Jamaat-e-Islami student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha that turned into Pakistan army's auxiliary force Al-Badr during the Liberation War, was arrested on June 29, 2010, in a criminal case and later shown arrest in war crimes cases.
The ICT-1 framed 16 charges against Nizami on May 28, 2012. According to the charges, Nizami had conspired with the Pakistani army, planned and incited crimes; was complicit in murders, rapes, looting and destruction of property; and was responsible for commissioning of internationally recognised wartime crimes in 1971.
But, it took around one and a half years for the completion of the trial, thanks to the lack of preparation of the prosecution and a range of dilatory tactics of the defence.
The tribunal first kept the case awaiting verdict on November 13 last year. But the proceeding faced further delay when tribunal's chairman Justice ATM Fazle Kabir went on retirement without delivering the judgment. His successor reheard the closing arguments and kept the verdict waiting again on March 24.
The tribunal could not deliver verdict on June 24 due to Nizami's sudden “illness” forcing the court to keep it waiting again.
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