Court Reporter //

The court has granted bail to former acting editor of Amar Desh newspaper Mahmudur Rahman, who was convicted in the case of kidnapping and attempted murder of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s son Sajib Wazed Joy.

On Thursday (October 3), Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge As Samch Jaglul Hossain’s court granted his bail.

Lawyer Mejbah said, we have appealed against the sentence. Along with that, I have applied for bail. The judge accepted the appeal and granted bail.

In the case, on August 17 last year, the court sentenced Mahmudur Rahman, former editor of Zay Zayedin Shafiq Rehman, vice president of Nationalist Socio-Cultural Agency (Jasas) Mohammad Ullah Mamun, his son Rizvi Ahmed alias Caesar and US expatriate businessman Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan to 7 years of rigorous imprisonment. Mamun, an expatriate in the United States, was the central vice-president of Jasas, an affiliate of BNP, and the vice-president of BNP in the United States. He lives in Fairfield County, Connecticut with his family.

Awami League president Sheikh Hasina’s son Sajib Wazed Joy lives in Virginia with his wife and children. A New York court sentenced Mamun’s son Rizvi Ahmed Caesar to three and a half years in prison on March 4, 2015, for bribing an FBI official to obtain confidential information stored by the country’s law enforcement agencies with the intention of harming him. After that verdict, on August 3, 2015, Detective Police Inspector Fazlur Rahman filed this case at Dhaka’s Paltan Police Station under Sections 307 and 120 (B) of the Criminal Penal Code, alleging conspiracy to kidnap Joy.

It is said that before September 2011, high-level leaders of BNP and BNP-led coalition along with Mamun conspired to abduct and kill Sajeeb Wazed Joy in America in New York City, United States, United Kingdom and various parts of Bangladesh at Jasa office in Paltan in the capital. After the investigation, Senior Assistant Commissioner of Intelligence Police Hasan Arafat filed a charge sheet against five people in the court on February 22, 2018. There, the names of Shafiq Rehman and Mahmudur Rahman were mentioned as the ‘instructors’ of the conspiracy to abduct and kill Joy. Accused Mohammad Ullah Mamun was accused of assisting in the conspiracy as a consultant.

According to the chargesheet, Mamun’s son Rizvi Ahmed collected Sajeeb Wazed’s personal information from the US investigative agency FBI and later provided it to the other accused. And expatriate businessman Mizanur Rahman was involved in this conspiracy as a consultant as well as providing money. The court started the trial against the five people when the detective police gave the charge sheet. Sajib Wazed Joy also testified in this case in November 2022. Then on August 17 last year, the judge announced the verdict in the absence of the accused. Arrest warrants were also issued against the accused as they were absconding.

Khaleda Zia’s former advisor Mahmudur Rahman was arrested on April 11, 2013 from Amar Desh office in Karwan Bazar, Dhaka in a sedition case. Later, in April 2016, he was arrested in Jai’s abduction conspiracy case. Mahmudur Rahman was released on bail in November 2016 after spending three and a half years in jail. Later he moved to London. He returned home on September 27 after spending 5 and a half years in exile. Then he surrendered to the court on September 29.