Mahmudur remanded for 5 days

A Dhaka court yesterday placed Amar Desh Editor Mahmudur Rahman on five-day remand for interrogation in connection with an alleged plot “to kidnap and kill Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's son Sajeeb Wazed Joy”.

Hassan Arafat, assistant commissioner of the Detective Branch of police and investigation officer of the case tied to the conspiracy allegedly hatched in the US, produced Mahmudur in the court during the hearing on a remand prayer.  

Metropolitan Magistrate Golam Nabi directed the IO to complete interrogating Mahmudur in seven workdays.

The IO was also asked to follow High Court directives during the interrogation.

The HC earlier issued instructions to be followed by law enforcers while interrogating an accused.

In the remand prayer submitted on April 18, the IO said the DB had found Mahmudur's involvement in the matter and so he should be quizzed for vital information.

The defence opposed the plea, saying their client was languishing in jail since April 2013 and that he did not go to America after 2006 according to his mother.

It added that Mahmudur had been implicated in the case as part of a conspiracy to harass him politically.

Earlier in the day, the Amar Desh editor was shown arrested in the case in response to another appeal by detectives.

In the same case, senior journalist and a pro-BNP intellectual Shafik Rehman was arrested at his Eskaton residence in the capital on April 16. He was remanded twice from the next day for 10 days.

Police claimed that Shafik admitted meeting four people including three convicted by a US court for bribing an FBI special agent for confidential information.

They are US-Bangladesh citizen Rizve Ahmed Caesar, former FBI special agent Robert Lustyik and his "contact" Johannes Thaler.

DB Inspector Fazlur Rahman filed the case with Paltan Police Station in August last year.

According to the case statement, Caesar's father Mohammad Ullah Mamun, vice-president of BNP's cultural wing Jasas, and some top leaders of the BNP and its allies met in the UK, US and many places in Bangladesh before September 2012 and conspired to abduct and kill the PM's son who lives in America.

In March last year, Caesar was convicted by a US court for bribing an FBI special agent to collect information about a Bangladeshi political figure.

The US Justice Department did not name the person but it is believed to be Joy.

In a Facebook post on March 9 last year, Joy, information and communication technology affairs adviser to the prime minister, accused the BNP leaders of conspiring to abduct and kill him.