SQC’s wife, son five others charge-sheeted

Court Correspondent :
The Detective Branch (DB) of Police yesterday (Thursday) submitted a charge-sheet against seven people including war crime convict BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury’s lawyer Barrister AKM Fakhrul Islam for leaking a verdict , pronounced against the convict.
DB Inspector Md Shahjahan Hossain placed the charge-sheet to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Court of Dhaka on Thursday.
Charges have been brought against six other people and they are: SQ Chowdhury’s wife Farhat Quader Chowdhury, his son Humam Quader Chowdhury, junior lawyers of Barrister Fakhrul – AKM Mahbubul Hasan and Mehedi Hasan, and the International Crimes Tribunal-1(ICT-1) office assistant Faruk Hossain and cleaner Nayan Ali.
The charge-sheet was submitted to the court of Magistrate Sabrina Ali and it will be placed to the court on September 23 for next course of the process.
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Court Police Anisur Rahman told the newsmen that all the accused, except the Chowdhury’s wife, son and the lawyer’s assistant Hasan are now in jail custody.
ICT employees Nayan Ali and Hosain made confessional statements to the court admitting their involvement in leaking the verdict of the tribunal.
On Oct 1 last year, SQ Chowdhury, was found guilty of crimes against humanity during the Liberation War of 1971, and he was awarded death sentence by the tribunal. Before the verdict was announced, the BNP leader’s wife and other members of the family showed ‘copies of the verdict’ to journalists, claiming they had found them on the internet.
Amid uproar about the incident, the ICT admitted that the draft of the verdict had indeed been leaked and the tribunal registrar lodged a general diary (GD) with Shahbagh Police Station of the city.
On Oct 5, police arrested the accused ICT employees and interrogated them.
On Nov 20, Chowdhury’s lawyer Barrister Fakhrul was arrested from his Segunbagicha residence.
According to police, the lawyer’s assistant had induced the two ICT employees to leak part of verdict’s draft in exchange of big payment.