Alim's review petition rejected

The International Crimes Tribunal-2 on Thursday rejected a petition seeking review of the indictment order against war crime suspect former BNP lawmaker Abdul Alim.

The three-judge panel led by Justice ATM Fazle Kabir passed the order in presence of Alim.

Alim's counsels filed the petition on June 20 nine days after the tribunal framed 17 specific charges against Alim which include genocide, murder of Bangalee civilians, and burying people alive during the 1971 Liberation War.

In the review petition, the defence counsels said the prosecution, in their formal charge, mentioned Alim as the chairman of Joypurhat Peace Committee and a Razakar commander.

But the tribunal framed the charges mentioning Alim as a “local influential leader of Razakar Bahini as well as the chairman of a local peace committee,” they said.

“Local influential leader” and “local peace committee” makes the allegations “unspecific” and it is difficult to prepare the defence on the basis of “unspecific allegations”. Therefore, the order should be reviewed, otherwise the accused would be prejudiced, the defence said.

While reading out the order on Thursday, Judge M Shahinur Islam said, “The matter stated on the review petition could be proper adjudicated at trial stage only. Therefore, the petition has been rejected.”

Alim was arrested on March 27 last year and on conditional bail since March 31 last year.

Meanwhile, the court also allowed two counsels for Jamaat-e-Islami leader Muhammad Kamaruzzaman to meet their client at Kashimpur Central Jail-2 on July 7.

Defence lawyers Ehsan A Siddique and Shishir Monir will meet him at the jail from 10:00am to 1:00pm.

The tribunal passed the order after the counsels sought its order to meet Kamaruzzaman for taking further preparation.