A prosecutor made a futile 75-minute exercise on Thursday before the International Crimes Tribunal-1 in support of its plea seeking to issue a contempt-of-court charge against its editor, publisher and a reporter of a vernacular national daily, reports UNB.
The three-member tribunal, headed by Justice M Enayetur Rahim, willy-nilly set May 28 for order on the prosecution's contempt-of-court plea.
The tribunal, however, kept an option open for the prosecution to submit any further cogent argument on its plea, if any, before passing order.
The prosecution has submitted an application with the tribunal seeking to draw contempt-of-court proceedings against the editor, the publisher and the reporter concerned of the daily Kalerkantha for publishing a 'highly contemptuous' report on May 11, headlined 'The activity of inefficient prosecution impedes speedy trial'.
The report tends to prejudice the prosecutors and has created hatred among the people both at home and abroad against the prosecution team as a whole, the prosecutor told the tribunal.
During the hearings, designated prosecutor Mohammad Ali was interrupted time and again by the tribunal as it failed to conceive his submission over the contempt-of-court plea.
Besides, the prosecutor also fell short in fully satisfying several questions as raised by the tribunal following his submission, especially in respect to the definition of 'constitutional expert' and 'expert in criminal law' as invariably used by both the print and audiovisual media to make a report 'credible'.
"Can you say what knowledge is required to be such an expert?" the tribunal asked prosecutor Mohammad Ali.
In reply, the prosecutor failed to deliver as he started faltering.
The prosecution earlier filed the contempt plea under section 11 (4) of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act 1973 read with its rule 45.
