Star counsels reject claim of Amar Desh lawyers
Eight lawyers who defended the editor and five other journalists of The Daily Star in a joint affidavit on Thursday said that their submissions made during the hearing on October 13 on charge framing in a defamation case filed by former energy adviser Mahmudur Rahman were correct and authentic.
But lawyers for Mahmudur Rahman had earlier made an affidavit for publishing the submissions of The Daily Star's lawyers, which were distorted in the Amar Desh and different newspapers.
In the affidavit before a Notary Public in Dhaka, Advocate Ashraf-ul-Alam, Anwarul Kabir Babul and six others said they appeared before the Metropolitan Magistrate's Court-8 on October 13 to take part in the hearing on a petition for discharging the editor and five other journalists from the defamation case filed by Mahmudur Rahman.
The affidavit said The Daily Star published a report headlined "Forces search for 41 political bigwigs: will disclose their names, ask them to surrender" on February 5, 2007.
The lawyers said The Daily Star published the report based on information from different government sources. They went on to say that two advisers also confirmed that law enforcers were hunting for suspected corrupts.
They neither gave any statements to the court blaming the two advisers nor did The Daily Star report contain any such things.
The affidavit said, "Ashraf-ul-Alam and others told the court (at the time) that cases were filed against 39 people out of the 41 mentioned in The Daily Star report and that many of them were convicted."
It added, "A corruption case against Mahmudur Rahman was filed with Motijheel Police Station on September 30, 2007. The Daily Star lawyers also mentioned in the court that Mahmudur Rahman was offloaded from a plane while going abroad."
Note
We have published a rejoinder and a counter rejoinder by lawyers from both the newspapers and decided not to carry such out-of-the-court seemingly endless arguments anymore.
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