A Dhaka court today convicted and sentenced five people, including senior journalist Shafik Rehman, to seven years' imprisonment for plotting to abduct and kill Sajeeb Wazed Joy, ICT affairs adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Other four convicts are: Mahmudur Rahman, former acting editor of now defunct daily Amar Desh; Mohammad Ullah Mamun, vice-president of Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangskritik Sangstha (Jasas); and his son Rizvi Ahmed Caesar; and Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan, a businessman living in the United States.

Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Muhammad Asaduzzaman Nur delivered the verdict in the case in their absence at the court, said Additional Public Prosecutor Abdur Rahman Kajol.

The court also fined them Tk 5,000 each, in default of which they will have to suffer one more month in jail.

The punishment of the fugitives will be effective from the day of their arrest or their surrender.

Earlier, the prosecution completed their arguments and the court recorded statements of 12 prosecution witnesses including Joy.

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

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.

The US justice department did not name the politician.

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

Shafik, also a British citizen, has worked for various media outlets.