The Hindu : Geelani a victim of prejudice, says forum

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 20, 2002

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Geelani a victim of prejudice, says forum

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI DEC. 19. While the Government and the Opposition have lauded the death sentences awarded to S.A.R. Geelani, Mohammad Afzal and Shaukat Hussain Guru in the December 13 Parliament attack case, questions are being raised about the judgment of the designated POTA court.

The All-India Defence Committee for Geelani said in a statement that he was a victim of "grave prejudice.'' Contesting the judge's interpretation of the main piece of evidence against him — a two-and-a-half minute conversation he had with his brother on the morning after the attack — the committee said that the judgment suggested that Geelani "talking in Kashmiri language supported the attack on Parliament.''

The interpretation was based on a translation by a barely class six pass fruit vendor, produced by the prosecution. He said that he had translated the tape after listening to it two or four times. He also said that the conversation did not have any English words. However, the tape of the conversation, which was played in the court, contained English words.

The committee, in its statement, said that though the prosecution did not produce any Kashmiri language experts "despite specific requests from Geelani and his advocates'' the court had condemned the two independent witnesses produced by the committee as "interested witnesses.'' The two independent witnesses were Sampat Prakash, veteran trade union leader from Srinagar, and the film-maker, Sanjay Kak.

The committee pointed out that the judge had chosen to believe the prosecution witness on the ground that "language is not a monopoly of the educated and elite class...'' In so doing, the judge had ignored the principle of fair trial that "the defence witnesses are entitled to equal treatment and equal respect as that of the prosecution.'' This is reaffirmed in a Supreme Court judgment earlier this year.

The statement said that the judge had also "chosen to ignore... the second cardinal principle of fair trial" that "statement of the accused must be treated like any other piece of evidence, and matters must be viewed with as much deference and given as much weight which tells against him. Because of the presumption of innocence in his favour.''

The committee would be issuing a full analysis of the judgment which pointed to the fact that the judge, S. N. Dhingra, had been "overwhelmingly been influenced by media coverage of the war against terrorism.''

The committee chairman is the political scientist, Rajani Kothari. Other members include the right to information activist, Aruna Roy, the socialist, Surendra Mohan, Y. P. Chibber of PUCL, Prof. Babu Mathew of the National Law School, Bangalore, writer Arundhati Roy, film-maker Sanjay Kak and the Supreme Court lawyer and human rights activist, Nandita Haksar.

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