‘Plot to kill Joy’: Shafik Rehman sent to jail

Journalist Shafik Rehman, who was remanded twice over an alleged plot to abduct and kill Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s son Sajeeb Wazed Joy, was sent to prison today.

Hasan Arafat, assistant commissioner of Detective Branch (DB) and the investigation officer of the case, placed him before the court of Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate SM Masud Jaman after his second remand ended today.

The court also directed the jail authorities to provide Shafik Rehman with proper treatment and division according to the jail code.

Plainclothes detectives arrested Rehman at his Eskaton Road house in the capital on April 16. The same day, he was placed on the five-day remand.

Police on April 19, claimed that Rehman admitted to having more than one meeting with those in the US allegedly involved in the plot to abduct and kill Joy, who lives in the US. Rehman admitted to meeting four persons, including the three convicted by a US court in March last year over bribing an FBI special agent to collect confidential information, claimed police. The three are: US-Bangladesh citizen Rizve Ahmed Caesar, former FBI special agent Robert Lustyik and his "contact" Johannes Thaler.

Caesar was convicted by a US court for bribing an FBI special agent to collect information regarding a Bangladeshi political figure. The US Justice Department did not name the figure, but it is believed to be Joy.

According to the case statement, Caesar's father Mamun and some top leaders of the BNP and its allies met in the UK, the US and various places of Bangladesh before September 2012 and conspired to abduct and kill the PM's son.

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

Shafik, who also holds British citizenship, worked in various media outlets, including the BBC, but came in the limelight after becoming editor of the weekly Jaijaidin in the 1980s.