‘Kneel and fire below the waist’

During the July uprising, then Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Habibur Rahman instructed police to open fire with "maximum force" to bring the situation under control, a prosecution witness told the International Crimes Tribunal-1 (ICT-1) yesterday.

Assistant Sub-inspector (ASI) Kamrul Hasan, who was serving as a wireless operator at the DMP's Crime Command and Control Centre at that time, testified that he relayed the commissioner's message to all DMP units.

The directive, issued via a wireless message on July 17, 2024, was played in the tribunal yesterday.

Kamrul was testifying in a case filed against deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina and two of her top aides.

In the audio, the ex-DMP commissioner was heard saying: "All our officers, wherever you are on duty, you may exercise maximum force to protect our own lives and property, offices and courts, and protect the lives and property of the people."

"You will take a kneeling position and fire below the waist to bring the situation under control."

Following the ASI's testimony, state defence counsel Amir Hossain, representing Hasina and former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, cross-examined him. The other accused in the case, ex-inspector general of police Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, has turned approver (state witness).

Meanwhile, CID digital laboratory expert Shahed Jobayer Lorence, who had completed his testimony earlier, gave an additional statement yesterday. He said he examined audio recordings of phone conversations between the then prime minister and Hasanul Haq Inu, president of Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal and former minister, and found that the voices matched their samples.

Defence counsel, however, claimed that the recordings were AI-generated.

Inu, accused in another case of crimes against humanity, is now in prison.

At a press briefing, prosecutor Mizanul Islam said during the phone conversations on July 20 and August 4 last year, Hasina and Inu discussed suppressing the movement by using lethal weapons and planned to surround protesters and kill them with bombs.

Two sub-inspectors --  Kamrul Hossain and Anisur Rahman -- also testified as seizure list witnesses.

Kamrul is currently serving as the record and library in-charge at the ICT's investigation agency, a post previously held by Anisur.

The ICT-1 has so far recorded testimonies from 52 witnesses in the case filed against Hasina, Kamal, and the former IGP. A special investigator in the case, who seized several phone call records of Hasina, will testify today.

Two more prosecution witnesses -- scrap trader Motibur Rahman and fruit seller Shafiqul Islam -- testified before the ICT-2 yesterday in a case filed over the killings of six protesters in Ashulia on August 5 last year.

The protesters were shot and subsequently burned by police.