Govt scraps Tureen Afroz’s appointment as war crimes prosecutor

The government has cancelled the appointment of Tureen Afroz as a prosecutor of the International Crimes Tribunal, citing allegations of professional misconduct against her.

The Law and Justice Division issued a notice on Monday, removing her from the post. The notice accused the Supreme Court lawyer of breaching the professional code of conduct and discipline.

In 2018, the tribunal pulled Tureen out of all cases for allegedly handing case documents to a war-crimes suspect in a secret meeting.

Tureen had allegedly met Muhammad Wahidul Haque, a war crimes suspect and former head of the National Security Intelligence and the Department of Immigration and Passports.

In a letter to Tureen, Chief Prosecutor Ghulam Arieff Tipoo alleged that the two met in a Gulshan restaurant on Nov 19, 2018, eight days after she was handed the case.

He said they came to know about the three-hour meeting and her conversations with the suspect from audio records on Wahidul’s mobile phone.

Gulshan Police Station OC Abu Bakr Siddique brought to the prosecution’s attention the records after police arrested Wahidul on Apr 24 and seized his mobile phone, the tribunal’s investigation agency's senior coordinator Mohammad Sanaul Haque told bdnews24.com earlier.