Dhaka, July 24 —Shahjalal University of Science and Technology Vice-Chancellor Dr Mohammad Saleh Uddin had testified on Monday how he had been tortured at Goods Hill, the BNP MP's home. Dr Saleh Uddin also said Salauddin Quader had slapped him after a whole day's torture at the Goods Hill garage.The war crimes tribunal saw BNP MP Salauddin Quader Chowdhury's defence complete cross-examination of the eighth prosecution witness on Tuesday.
Set up to try crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War, the three-judge International Crimes Tribunal indicted the six-time BNP from Chittagong for 23 war crimes charges on Apr 4. On Tuesday, Ahsanul Huq suggested that the witness was in fact involved with certain elements and not quite 'innocent' as claimed.
The witness had said that he was taken from a house in Mohora village under Hathazari in Chittagong by the local union chairman. He was then taken to Goods Hill by two Pakistani soldiers and beaten up for no reason.The defence counsel suggested that the witness was heavily involved in politics. In fact, that was one of the reasons that Dr Saleh Uddin had been transferred from the Chittagong College, a better academic institution with residential facilities, to the Chittagong City College, which did not have hostels for its students. Dr Saleh Uddin denied.
The witness had said that he was given an oversized shirt since his own shirt, a white half-sleeve, had become all bloodied. The defence counsel said he had made that claim only at the behest of the prosecution. "You actually had a different coloured shirt that day."The witness said he had not made it up at all and was indeed wearing a white shirt.
Ahsanul Huq concluded with his usual suggestion that the witness had given false testimony in a false case and no such incident in the said manner, at the said time or in the said place had taken place. The witness said the suggestion was not true. The defence counsel wrapped up the cross-examination with half an hour to spare. He was given the whole day at the outset.
Salauddin Quader in ICT
The prosecution submitted formal charges against Salauddin Quader on Nov 14, 2011 and the tribunal took them into cognisance three days later. A former prime ministerial adviser on parliamentary affairs when BNP chief Khaleda Zia was in office, the Chittagong MP was shown arrested for war crimes charges on Dec 20, 2010, five days after his arrest.The investigating agency submitted a 119-page report with around 8,000-page data to the chief prosecutor on Oct 3 in a bid to prove allegations of war crimes during the 1971 Liberation War.
The BNP leader was indicted on Apr 4 on 23 charges of war crimes.Besides Jamaat-e-Islami executive council member Delwar Hossain Sayedee whose case is the most advanced and Salauddin Quader, Jamaat chief Matiur Rahman Nizami, Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed and assistant secretaries general Mohammad Kamaruzzaman and Abdul Quader Molla have been detained on war crimes charges and their trials have started too.
The tribunal also sent Jamaat-e-Islami's former chief Ghulam Azam to jail on Jan 11 and indicted him on five different charges on May 13.The second tribunal, set up on Mar 22, 2012 to expedite the war crimes cases, has given Abdul Alim, former BNP MP Abdul Alim and member of Ziaur Rahman's cabinet, an indefinite bail while his trial proceeds. BDNEWS24.COM
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