DACCA: Sheikh Mujibur Rehman was today [Oct 24] acquitted by Mr M.A. Malek, Magistrate First Class, of a charge of making a “prejudicial” speech at the Outer Stadium here two years ago.

Delivering the judgment, the Magistrate observed that the prosecution failed to prove the case and that some of the prosecution witnesses’ depositions before the court were contradictory to each other.

He also observed that the transcription of the alleged speech, delivered on September 29 in 1964 produced before the court, was not duly authenticated and said that some of the prosecution witnesses’ statements ran counter to it.

Sheikh Mujib, President of the East Pakistan Awami League, was charged under Section 7(3) of the East Pakistan Public Safety Ordinance for delivering the speech calculated to bring into hatred the lawfully established government and to stir up bad feeling among the people.

[Meanwhile, as reported by agencies from the United Nations,] the British, Indians and Americans — in that order of power — control the U.N. Secretariat, it was claimed in a book published yesterday.

The author of the book titled “The Play within the Play” is Brazilian Dr. Hernane Tavares, United Nations former publicity chief.

He quotes an unnamed former U.N. official as saying that the British, Indians and Americans control the Secretariat.

According to the book, the British and Indians are the best articulated groups in the Secretariat, and when the Americans wanted to begin cutting the Indians down to size in 1962 the British persuaded them against it.

The British, with their uncanny political wisdom, were aware that if the Indians went, less dependable Afro-Asians, not Westerners, would take their posts, the official is quoted as saying.

The author says the Secretariat is controlled by Anglo-Saxons because almost all senior officials come from white English-speaking countries.

Published in Dawn October 25th, 2016