Community News Desk: A Kuala Lumpur court in Malaysia has temporarily barred the deportation of Bangladesh’s former High Commissioner to Malaysia Mohamed Khairuzzaman.
A source from Malaysia confirmed this to the Great Bengal Today.
The court pronounced the order on Friday following a writ petition filed in favour of the former ambassador.
The court is likely to decide on Monday on the date of hearing the writ.
Mohamed Khairuzzaman’s lawyer AS Dhaliwal has told Free Malaysia Today, a news portal, his client is a political refugee. He has a UNHCR cardholder and has not broken any law regarding immigration. That’s why arresting him is an illegal act.
“My client has valid travel documents and was not even working here, he was just at home. He is a political refugee and Malaysia has no right to deport him,” he told FMT.
Immigration police of Malaysia arrested Khairuzzaman on 9 February morning from Ampang town in Selangor state of the country. Malaysia’s home minister Hamzah Zainudin confirmed his arrest.
Mohamed Khairuzzaman was a former army official, who was made a diplomat during the time of military government on deputation.
Malaysian home minister Hamzah Zainudin told a press conference on Thursday that there are allegations of Khairuzzaman’s involvement with crimes committed in Bangladesh. He was arrested, following all the laws, as the country requested.
After several hours, contradicting the statement of Malaysian home minister Hamzah Zainudin, Bangladesh’s state minister for home affairs, Shahriar Alam told media that Malaysian home ministry sent a letter to the Bangladesh high commission in Kuala Lumpur saying that Khairuzzaman was arrested due to violation of the Malaysian laws related to immigration. “The government is working to bring back the former high commissioner as soon as possible.”
Shahriar Alam also said any person set to be deported on charges of violating immigration laws is kept at the detention centre. He (Khairuzzaman) has also been kept there. Bangladesh mission in Malaysia has been asked to take action in this regard, he added.
M Khairuzzaman is a former army officer. He was one of the main accused in the murder of four national leaders — Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmed, M Mansur Ali and AHM Kamaruzzaman — inside the central jail on 3 November 1975. Later, he was transferred to the foreign ministry.
Besides working at the foreign ministry in Dhaka, M Khairuzzaman worked at different posts of Bangladesh missions in Myanmar, Egypt and Philippines.
Upon coming to power in 1996 the Awami League government sent him on retirement and arrested as an accused in the jail killing case.
When the BNP-Jamaat alliance formed the government in 2001, M Khairuzzaman secured bail and got back his job. He was appointed as the director general of the foreign ministry.
Later, in 2004, M Khairuzzaman was acquitted from the jail killing case. In the next year he was appointed to the Bangladesh embassy in Myanmar. In August 2007, he was appointed as Bangladesh High Commissioner in Malaysia.
When Awami League formed government again in 2009, Khairuzzaman was ordered to return home. But he has been staying in Malaysia since then.
Later, Khairuzzaman acquired the refugee status given by UNHCR. The UNHCR gave him a card in March 2020 in this regard. The expiry date of the card is 2024.
