2 ex-editors Shafiq Rehman, Mahmudur Rahman jailed for 7 years

A Dhaka court ordered 7 years imprisonment under two separate sections to Mahmudur Rahman, Shafiq Rehman and three others in connection with a case filed over plotting to kidnap and kill Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina‍‍‍`s son Sajeeb Wazed Joy in the United States.

Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Asaduzzaman Noor announced the verdict on Thursday (August 17), in their absence at the court, said Additional Public Prosecutor Abdur Rahman Kajol.

Mahmudur Rahman is a former acting editor of now defunct Bangla daily Amar Desh, and Shafiq Rehman was the Editor of another Bangla daily Jai Jai Din till 2008.

Other convicts are, Mohammad Ullah Mamun, vice-president of Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangskritik Sangstha (Jasas) - a pro-BNP organisation; and his son Rizvi Ahmed Caesar; and Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan, a businessman living in the United States.

The court also imposed a Tk 5,000 fine on each of them, failing which they will have to serve an additional month in jail.

The fugitives‍‍` sentence will take effect the day they are apprehended or surrender.

Earlier, the prosecution finished making arguments, and the court had recorded the testimony of 12 witnesses, including Joy, also PM‍‍`s ICT affairs adviser.

In a Facebook post on March 9, 2015, Joy accused BNP leaders of conspiring to abduct and kill him.

The Detective Branch (DB) of the police filed the case with the Paltan Police Station on August 3, 2015.

Shafik Rehman and Mahmudur secured bail from the higher courts on different dates in the case, but they went abroad to avoid the trial proceedings of the case.

The DB pressed charges against the five accused on February 20, 2018.

The charge sheet mentioned Mamun, Rizvi and Mizanur as absconding, and Shafik and Mahmudur as the masterminds behind the conspiracy. Mamun aided and abetted the others, the charge sheet said.

Rizvi collected information on Joy from the FBI and gave it to the other accused, it added.

According to the complaint, Mamun and several top leaders of the BNP and its allies met in the UK, the US and different places in Bangladesh before September 2012 and plotted to abduct and kill Joy.

In March 2015, a US court convicted Rizvi of bribing an FBI agent for information on a Bangladeshi political figure.