Dhaka, Aug 5 (bdnews24.com) —Jamaat-e-Islami’s chief counsel Abdur Razzaq on Sunday filed a contempt petition against ruling Awami League leader Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury at the second war crimes tribunal.

Set up to expedite the war crimes trial, the three-judge International Crimes Tribunal-2, chaired by Justice A T M FAzle Kabir, fixed Aug 27 for hearing the application.

Representing the top Jamaat leaders detained for war crimes charges, Razzaq said the trial proceedings presumed innocence of his party leaders.

“But she has made remarks as if they are guilty,” he told bdnews24.com on Sunday.

The senior lawyer said Sajeda Chowdhury was a respectable person, “But her comments have perverted the course of justice.”

Razzaq confirmed he had presented Bengali daily Amar Desh to show what kind of remarks the Awami League policymaker had made on Jul 27 at a party programme at the Institution of Engineers in Dhaka.

Sajeda, the Deputy Leader in Parliament, was quoted by the pro-BNP newspaper as saying, “If one or two of them are hanged, then it will shut them up. There won’t be any legal debates anymore.”

Referring to the Jamaat leaders in jail facing war crimes changes, she reportedly said, “The Razakars did not bother with laws when they tortured in 1971. So we should not either.”

Such comments, according to Jamaat’s chief defence counsel, warranted proceedings to be initiated against her.

Currently the entire Jamaat leadership is in jail on war crimes charges. Among them are Jamaat guru Ghulam Azam, former party chief during the Liberation War, the current Jamaat chief Matiur Rahman Nizami, who headed Jamaat’s student wing during the war, currently the Jamaat number two Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed, who succeeded Nizami in 1971, the party’s assistant secretaries general Abdul Quader Molla and Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, and its executive council member Delwar Hossain Sayedee.

More recently the Islamist organisation’s financier Mir Quasem Ali has been arrested for war crimes charges while investigations continue against him.

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Keywords/Tags: Abdur Razzaq, International Crimes Tribunal, Jamaat-e-Islami, Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury, war crimes trial