The verdict on the case filed over the wartime crimes against former MP and Satkhira district unit chief of Jamaat-e-Islami Maulana Md Abdul Khaleque Mandal and Khan Rokunuzzaman will be delivered any day.
The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) has ended hearing closing arguments in the case and announced that it would deliver the verdict on the case any day.
The tribunal made the announcement on Thursday (November 11) on completion of arguments from both the prosecution and the defence lawyers.
Read more: China ruling party leaders pass historic Xi resolution
Prosecutor Rezia Sultana Chamon placed her rebuttal after the defence lawyers’ case summing up arguments. She demanded capital punishment for the two accused claiming that they could prove all the six charges against them. She argued that the witnesses identified the accused as offenders and the duo, being active members of Islami Chhatra Sangha, the-then student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami, joined the Razakar force.
Citing evidences given by the prosecution witnesses, the prosecution team submitted the documents that the accused persons, being members of Razakar force, had committed crimes of murders, abduction, torture, rapes and arson attacks on houses after looting during the Liberation War of Bangladesh at different places in Satkhira.
Defence lawyers Abdus Sobhan Tarafdar and Gazi MH Tamim claimed that their clients are innocent.
Jamaat leader Abdul Khaleque Mandal was arrested from a madrasah in Satkhira on June 16 in 2015. Later, he had been shown arrested for committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.
On July 2 in 2009, Nazrul Islam Gazi from Shimulbarhia village filed a case against him for killing his father Rustam Ali and four others during the war against Pakistan.
The 72-year Abdul Khaleque Mandal is now in the jail while Rokonuzzanan, 64, is facing trial in absentia.
The tribunal indicted four accused in the case-- Abdul Khaleque Mandal, Rokonuzzanan, M Abdullah-Al-Baki, 103, and Zahirul Islam, 65,-- on March 5 in 2018 on six counts of crimes against humanity.
Their trial began on April 15 in 2018.
Baki and Zahirul died while the trial was in progress, So, the tribunal dropped their names from the chargesheet.
The prosecution produced 17 witnesses to prove the six charges against the accused.
None testified for the accused people.
