Mohammed Nizamul Huq

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Mohammed Nizamul Huq Nassim
Justice of the High Court Division
Personal details
Born (1950-03-15) 15 March 1950 (age 74)
NationalityBangladeshi
Parent(s)Nurul Huq (father) and Asia Khatun (mother)
Alma mater Patuakhali Government Jubilee High School
OccupationJudge
Known forhis tenure on the International Crimes Tribunal

Mohammed Nizamul Huq Nassim (born 15 March 1950), (Anglicized also as: Nizamul Haque Nasim [1] or as Nizamul Haque Nizam [2] ) was a judge of the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. [3] He is the incumbent Chairman of Bangladesh Press Council. [4] He chaired the panel of three judges that presided over the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal until his resignation on 11 December 2012. [5] [6]

Contents

Personal history

Nizamul Huq is the son of Nurul Huq, his father, and Asia Khatun, his mother. [3] He attended the Patuakhali Government Jubilee High School in the Patuakhali District. [7]

Career

Nizamul Huq was a treasurer and lawyer for the Bangladesh human rights organisation Odhikar (Anglicized also as Adhikar) before joining the High Court. [8] [9]

Huq was first appointed judge of the High Court by President Shahabuddin Ahmed, a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. [1] [3] [10] Huq was reappointed to the High Court by President Zillur Rahman, on 24 March 2009. [11] [12]

Huq was a member of the Secretariat of the People's Commission, which prepared evidence in 1994 before the tribunal about the defendants, over whom Huq would later preside, and he later deliberated on the report as evidence during the war crimes trials. [13] [14] Afterward, he was appointed as the head of the International Crimes Tribunal on 25 March 2010, and he resigned amid a controversy on 11 December 2012 after his Skype calls with Ahmed Ziauddin were revealed by Amar Desh and The Economist . [6] [15] [16] He was replaced by Fazle Kabir. [17] Afterward he rejoined the High Court and hears civil cases. [18]

The Skype controversy

Nizamul Huq resigned his position for "personal reasons" and shortly after the release of the full 17 hours of Skype conversations and 230 emails between himself and Ziauddin to news sources. [19] [20] From December 2012 until March 2013, it was unknown who had obtained access to the Skype conversations and emails or how those materials were obtained, although the publishers of the content were first suspected. [21] In 2013, journalist David Bergman reported that he had learned that Huq had transferred his entire computer drive over multiple computers and a US-based security firm said people with legal access to those drives gave its agents the files. [22] In the New Age article, Bergman quotes James Mulvaney, who is from Guardian Consulting LLC and the private security firm that was given the materials by an unnamed source, says:

... those who provided the company's operatives with copies of the material did not break the law as it came 'from people with legal access to any number of hard drives on which the evidence was stored and was/is available. We did not hack his computer' [22]

The company said it had been paid $100,000 by a client who questioned the neutrality of Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal. [22] The war crimes court accused The Economist and Amar Desh of "hacking" Huq's computers. [23]

The Economist said in its article "The trial of the birth of a nation" (12 December 2012) [24] that it would not normally publish private correspondence, denied that it had paid for the materials and acknowledged issues of press ethics, but it cited "public interest" behind its decision. [20] The magazine wrote, "These emails, if genuine, would indeed raise questions about the working of the court and we are bound to investigate them as fully as we can." [25] It further wrote about its coverage of the cache,"There is a risk not only of a miscarriage of justice affecting the individual defendants, but also that the wrongs which Bangladesh has already suffered will be aggravated by the flawed process of the tribunal. That would not heal the country's wounds, but deepen them." [14] The court called the UK magazine's article on the Skype conversation "interference" and a "violation" of privacy and ordered its representatives to appear before the court in Bangladesh to answer for contempt of court. [19] [25]

The further publication of verbatim quotes from the Skype conversations between Nizamul Huq and Ahmed Ziauddin by the Bangladesh newspaper Amar Desh revealed government intervention into the judiciary and Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal, which Huq led. [19] Huq said in the widely available video (as quoted from Foreign Policy magazine, 21 December 2012) that the Awami League-led government is "absolutely crazy for a judgment. The government has gone mad. They have gone completely mad, I am telling you. They want a judgment by 16th December... It's as simple as that." [14] [20] [26] Later in the video, he admits that he publicly met with an appointed minister from the government and was pressured by that minister for quick verdicts. Huq said, the minister "came to visit me this evening. He asked me to pass this verdict fast. I told him 'how can I do that?'... He said, 'Try as quick as you can.'" [26] The newspaper Amar Desh also published emails from Huq to Ziauddin. [14] A sedition charge was filed on 14 December 2012 against Amar Desh editor Mahmudur Rahman. [16] The government arrested Mahmudur Rahman, editor of the Amar Desh on 11 April 2013 for sedition and cyber crimes involving the Skype videos and their publication in his newspaper. [27]

In December 2012, the court by order suppressed the media from publishing materials or accounts of those Skype conversations. [22] [28] According to news sources, the videos of the conversations between Huq and Ziauddin were posted to YouTube. [20]

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References

  1. 1 2 "President likely to appoint 12 HC judges by January 7". The Independent. 2 January 2001.
  2. ↑ "AL-backed panel sweeps SC Bar poll". The Independent. 2 April 2003.
  3. 1 2 3 "Judges' List: High Court Division". Supreme Court of Bangladesh. Archived from the original on 8 March 2013. Retrieved 24 February 2013..
  4. ↑ jagonews24.com. "Nizamul Huq appointed as Chairman of Press Council". jagonews24.com. Retrieved 2 December 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  5. ↑ Ethirajan, Anbarasan (11 December 2012). "Bangladesh war crimes judge Nizamul Huq resigns". BBC News. Retrieved 24 February 2013.
  6. 1 2 "Justice Nizamul quits International Crimes Tribunal". The Daily Star. Dhaka. 11 December 2012. Retrieved 24 February 2013.
  7. ↑ "125th founding day of a Patuakhali school". The Daily Star. Dhaka. 13 January 2013. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
  8. ↑ "Sri Lankans in country to visit CHT". The Independent. 25 December 1998.
  9. ↑ "Kidney removal at DMCH: Health Secy, five others asked to show cause". The Independent. 3 September 1998.
  10. ↑ "Five out of nine HC judges confirmed". The Independent. 3 July 2003.
  11. ↑ "10 HC judges sworn in". The Daily Star. Dhaka. 26 March 2009. Retrieved 24 February 2013.
  12. ↑ "Bangladesh elects new president". BBC News. 11 February 2009. Retrieved 24 February 2013.
  13. ↑ Khan, Tamanna (14 October 2011). "Is the Wait Over?". The Daily Star. Dhaka. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
  14. 1 2 3 4 Jilanee, S.G. (31 January 2013). "Abusing the System". Vol. 17, no. 1. SouthAsia Magazine. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
  15. ↑ "2 journalists have to reply to ICT notice by March 4". The Daily Star. Dhaka. 4 February 2013. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
  16. 1 2 "Sedition case filed against Amar Desh editor, publisher". The Daily Star. Dhaka. 13 December 2013. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
  17. ↑ "Justice Kabir new chief". The Daily Star. Dhaka. 13 December 2012. Retrieved 10 April 2013.
  18. ↑ "Justice Nizamul back to HC". The Daily Star. Dhaka. 11 January 2013. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
  19. 1 2 3 "International Crimes Tribunal chairman resigns over Skype". Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha. 11 December 2012. Archived from the original on 15 June 2013. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
  20. 1 2 3 4 "Bangladesh war crimes chief judge resigns over hacked calls". DAWN. Agence France-Presse. 11 December 2012. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
  21. ↑ "Tribunal chief's net talks, mail hacked". The Daily Star. Dhaka. 7 December 2012. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
  22. 1 2 3 4 Bergman, David (23 March 2013). "US pvt intelligence firm reveals ICT Skype role". New Age. Dhaka. Archived from the original on 17 January 2014. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
  23. ↑ "The Economist accused of hacking Bangladesh war crime tribunal judge". The Australian. Associated Press. 10 December 2012. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
  24. ↑ "The trial of the birth of a nation". The Economist. 12 December 2012. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
  25. 1 2 Hossain, Farid (9 December 2012). "Economist Magazine Faces Contempt in Bangladesh". Associated Press. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
  26. 1 2 "The Midlife Crisis of Bangladesh". Foreign Policy. 21 December 2012. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
  27. ↑ "Bangladesh newspaper editor arrested in raid". Al Jazeera. 11 April 2013. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
  28. ↑ "HC questions legality of hacking e-mail, Skype". New Age. Dhaka. 14 December 2012. Archived from the original on 4 October 2013. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
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