দি কিউরিয়াস কেইস অফ কাদের মোল্লা এবং সাক্ষী মোমেনা

সাফী নামে একজন ভদ্রলোক আরিফ রহমান ভাইয়ের একটি পোস্ট “কসাই কাদের আর মোল্লা কাদের নাকি এক ব্যাক্তি ছিলেন না; বীরাঙ্গনা মোমেনা বেগম আমায় ক্ষমা করবেন…” এ একটি মন্তব্য করেছেন।

Mr. Razzak submitted that the Appellant’s learned Advocate that was initially engaged failed to put some pertinent questions to this witness of the prosecution and thus, she should now be made available to reply to those missed out questions in the interest of justice. Mr. Razzak tended to place paramount reliance on the ratio of the UK Court of Appeals’ decision in the case of Birmingham Six (1991 Cr. Appeal Review, Page 287), but we find no element in the case in hand to relate the same with the decision in Birmingham Six case, which, succinctly is that if new evidence surfaces after a trial or even appellate procedure is concluded, a trial de-novo can nevertheless be re-commenced. [আপীলেট ডিভিশান রায়, পৃষ্ঠা ৭৪৫, ৭৪৬]

He also complained that Quader Molla’s name is not figured in Jallad Khana documents. Admittedly these claimed documents were never adduced as evidence and never formed part of the proceeding. I can not accept as evidence some unauthenticated photocopies, which were never proved. I do not know what they are whence they came, who made them. These are obscure photocopies of some papers from unidentified source. [আপীলেট ডিভিশান রায়, পৃষ্ঠা ৭৪৭]

To coagulate the Tribunal’s view, we would add that the Appellant and / or his learned Advocates came to know of Jallad Khana records at the latest on 17th October 2012, the date on which P.W. 11’s examination was concluded, because that witnesses explicitly stated that she picked up information from the Mirpur Jallad Khana on some P.Ws. yet they remained mum for nearly three months before filing the subject application. This inordinate delay is inexplicable and can quite sensibly be looked at as a delaying device, given that the defence filed numerous unmeritorious applications during the trial that subsisted for a year after the assumption of cognizance.

The Appellant quite emphatically stated that he was the private secretary to Mr.Golam Azam, the then head of Jamate Islam, he was head of the Shahidulla Hall unit of Islami Student Organisation, the student organisation, which was Jamate Islami’s ideological apostle, and acted in accordance with Jamats’ sermons. Assertion by a number of P.Ws that Mr. Golam Azam was a candidate for Parliamentary election that took place in 1970, as a Jamat nominee, has never been disputed by the defence side. It is only natural that as Mr. Golam Azam’s private secretary and Jamat’s ideological follower, he would have devoted a great deal of time to campaign for Mr. Golam Azam, yet the Appellant did not utter a word about Mr. Golam Azam’s 1970 election though he gave vivid description of what he claims to have been doing in 1970, which makes his deposition doubtful. Secondly, in the light of the appellant’s admitted background it is inconceivable that the Appellant would have had taken armed training to liberate Bangladesh from Pakistani suzerienty.

While truth will face casualty if it is stated omnibus that all the activists of Jamat and its ffshoots resorted to killing, raping etc. and while reality dictates that some members of Jamat parted company with Jamat’s stance particularly after the Pak army’s crackdown, the stark truth is that Jamat as a political party conceptually and incessantly remained loyal to Pak army, opposed to Liberation War and took a firm position to stand by the idea of united Pakistan and interruptedly kept helping Pak army throughout the War period,in their effort to foil the Liberation War.

Appellant’s subsequent activities such as his continuation as a Jamat high up after it re emerged as a political party in 1979 proves that he did not deviate from Jamat’s philosophy and therefore his claim to have had taken armed training to fight Pak army to Liberate Bangladesh is simply absurd and devoid of any credibility whatsoever. This patently concocted claim goes to tarnish the very root of his credit rating as a witness.

Having compared the testimonies of D.Ws 1, 2, 3 and 6, all of whom basically tried to prove the Appellant’s alibi, I have detected catastrohic discrepancies, capable of rendering their version to nullity. The appellant himself said that he ran the business at the market place at his village home upto the end of 1972, whereas D.W. 3 asserted that the Appellant was in the business for a total period of one year, which means upto March 72. While the Appellant insisted that he returned to the hall to take the practical exms in July 71 for a period, which on calculation appears to have been in excess of 4 weeks, D.W. 6, who affirmed that he stayed back in the hall and performed as the Imam of the Hall’s mosque, stated that the Appellant remained in the village all through the period and that he next saw the Appellant only at the end of 1972. D.W. 2 and D.W. 3 also said that they kept seeing the Appellant in his business venue in the market place throughout the period i.e. without intermission. There are yet two other plausible reasons why I find the alibi evidence incredible.