Wife, son of war criminal SQ Chowdhury get bail in verdict leak case

War crimes convict Salauddin Qauder Chowdhury's wife and son have secured bail after surrendering to the court in a case concerning the leaking of the tribunal's verdict in Chowdhury's war crimes trial.

The BNP leader's wife Farhat Quader Chowdhury and son Hummam Quader Chowdhury surrendered at Dhaka’s Cyber Crimes Tribunal on Thursday and filed for bail.

Tribunal Judge M Shamsul Alam granted the bail against a Tk 100,000 bond.

On Aug 28, police had pressed charges against seven people in the case over the verdict leak.

Apart from Chowdhury's wife and son, the other accused are his lawyer Fakhrul Islam, Mehedi Hasan, a staff to lawyer Islam, and International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) employees Nayan Ali and Faruk Hossain.

SQ Chowdhury’s family members outside the tribunal on Oct 1, 2013.

On Oct 12, the court took cognizance of the matter and issued arrest warrants for Chowdhury's wife, son, and Mehedi Hasan.

On Oct 1 last year, SQ Chowdhury, found guilty of crimes against humanity in 1971, was given the death sentence by the ICT.

But before the verdict was announced, the BNP leader’s wife and other members of the family showed ‘copies of the verdict’ to journalists, claiming they had found them on the internet.

Amid a furore over the incident, the ICT admitted that the draft of the verdict had indeed been leaked and the tribunal registrar filed a case with police.

On Oct 5, police arrested the accused ICT employees and interrogated them. Both of them confessed to court of being involved in the leak.

On Nov 20, Chowdhury’s lawyer was arrested from his Segunbagicha residence.

According to police, the lawyer’s assistant had induced the two ICT employees to leak a part of verdict’s draft in exchange of hefty payments.