Trouble mounts on Bangladesh opposition as court docket lists 2004 arms haul case for listening to
The Bangladesh’s excessive court docket bench will hear an enchantment within the 2004 arms haul case on October 18, including to the troubles of the nation’s Opposition – the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its ally, the Jamaat-e-Islami.
These weapons had been allegedly introduced from China for the Assam separatist group, ULFA. Two of the convicts are lifeless.
Top functionaries of the BNP-JAMAAT authorities, together with two ministers, had been discovered concerned and later convicted for involvement within the sensational case.
In Bangladesh, if a decrease court docket sentences an individual to demise, the judgment is examined by the excessive court docket.
The case paperwork and judgment have reached the excessive court docket whereas a number of convicts within the case have filed separate appeals with the court docket difficult the sooner verdict towards them.
On January 16, the demise reference and enchantment of the accused sentenced to demise had been listed on the High Court’s agenda.
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THE 2004 ARMS HAUL CASE
In April 2004, when the BNP-Jamaat coalition was in energy within the nation, an enormous consignment of arms was seized from the CUFL Ghat within the port metropolis of Chittagong.
Ten vans had been lined as much as carry the consignment. Following the restoration, two circumstances had been filed with the police in Karnaphuli below the Arms Act and the Special Powers Act.
On January 30, 2014, the Chattogram Metropolitan Sessions Judge Court and Special Tribunal-1 Judge SM Mojibur Rahman sentenced 14 folks, together with two ministers of the BNP-JAMAAT coalition, to demise below the Special Powers Act. Under the Arms Act, the 14 had been sentenced to life imprisonment.
On February 4, 2014, the 514-page verdict within the two circumstances was revealed.
Two of the convicts, Jamaat Amir and former agriculture minister Motiur Rahman Nizami, walked to the gallows when convicted within the 1971 battle crimes trials for atrocities towards Bengalis in collaboration with the Pakistan Army. Another convict – a former high intelligence official, Abdur Rahim – died of Covid-19. The chief of a army wing, Paresh Barua, additionally convicted within the case, has not appealed.
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Interestingly, on Wednesday, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sharma credited the present Bangladesh premier and Awami League Chief, Sheikh Hasina, for taking sufficient steps that helped curb militancy and terrorism in Assam.
Lauding the prime minister’s efforts, Sarma mentioned the crackdown by the Bangladesh authorities on the rebel group United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) contained in the nation has “tremendously helped Assam”.
The enchantment will flip the main target again on the lively patronage to gunrunning and terrorism through the BNP-JAMAAT rule between 2001 and 2006.
Since the Chittagong arms seizure was adopted by the lethal grenade assault on an Awami League rally inside 4 months – an assault that just about killed Sheikh Hasina, it uncovered the unholy alliance Tarique Rahman held with the pro-Pak Jamaat occasion to destroy the secular polity of the nation.
It can even flip the lights on to the BNP’s de-facto chief, Tarique Rahman, who has been dwelling in London for over a decade to evade punishment after conviction within the 2004 grenade assault on Sheikh Hasina’s rally that killed nearly 30 Awami League leaders and activists. Those interesting the demise sentence, together with former junior residence minister Lutfor Zaman Babar, had been shut confidantes of Tarique who loved an in depth relationship with Pakistan’s spy company ISI.
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