GBT Desk: A Dhaka court on Thursday awarded seven-year imprisonment to journalist Shafik Rehman, Daily Amar Desh acting Editor Mahmudur Rahman and three other people in a case filed for plotting to kill Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s son and her ICT Affairs Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Mohammad Asaduzzaman Noor delivered the verdict.
The three other convicts are Mohammad Ullah Mamun, vice-president of Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangskritik Sangstha (JASAS), and his son Rizvi Ahmed Caesar, and Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan, an expatriate businessman living in the United States.
The convicts were given five years’ imprisonment and Tk 5,000 fine for attempting to kidnap Joy while two more years and Tk 5,000 fine for plotting to kill him.
Shafik Rehman and Mahmudur Rahman, alleged mastermind of the plot, obtained bail from the High Court on various occasions in the case and they went abroad to avoid the trial. Mamun, Rizvi and Mizanur were tried in absentia.
In its verdict, the court said punishment of the fugitives will come into effect from the day of their arrest or their surrender.
Mamun and other top leaders of BNP and its allies allegedly met in the UK, the US and different places in Bangladesh before September 2012 and plotted to abduct and kill Joy.
A US court, in March 2015, convicted Rizvi of bribing an FBI agent for information on a Bangladeshi political figure. However, the US Justice Department did not name the politician.
Meanwhile, a case was filed on August 3, 2015 by the Detective Branch (DB) of police with Paltan Police Station over the incident.
On February 20, 2018, the DB submitted a charge sheet against Shafik Rehman and four others in the case.
