Bangladesh News

AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed, condemned to death for killing Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family, was arrested in the United States Tuesday, report agencies.

He left the country soon after Awami League (AL) came to power in 1996. He was tried in absentia and two years later, along with some other ex-army personnel, was convicted of assassination of the country’s founding father.

Led by Sheikh Hasina, one of Bangabandhu’s two surviving daughters, the then government took measures for extradition of the killers, but could not finish the job during its tenure. The process to bring them back froze after the BNP-led four-party alliance formed government in 2001.

Officials of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided Mohiuddin’s house in Los Angeles Tuesday morning and arrested him, AFP reports quoting an ICE statement.

Also sentenced to life for aiding and abetting the killing of the four national leaders on November 3,1975, Major (retired) Mohiuddin went to the US on a visitor’s visa and applied for permanent residence. But he was ordered to return to Bangladesh to face the criminal charges.

The immigration case dragged on for several years as he appealed a deportation order handed down by an immigration judge in 2002. Late last month, a judge in the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco allowed the order to stand.

“After the 9th Circuit denied his petition to review the case, (Ahmed) became a fugitive in the US,” said Brian DeMore, deputy field director of the immigration enforcement agency, reports AP.

“Authorities will begin proceedings to return him to Bangladesh,” the news agency quoted DeMore as saying.

Law Adviser Mainul Hosein yesterday said as per the law steps will have to be taken to get him back to the country.

Mohiuddin has been sought by the Bangladesh government since a trial court on November 8, 1998, handed down death sentence to him and 14 other former and dismissed army men for the killings.

The verdict came 23 years after Bangabandhu was brutally murdered along with 26 others, including his wife, three sons, two daughters-in-law, brother, close relatives, political associates and security men in a pre-dawn attack on August 15, 1975.

The High Court on April 30, 2001 upheld the punishment of 12. Of them, only four–Lt Col Syed Farooq Rehman, Lt Col Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Lt Col Mohiuddin and Maj Bazlul Huda–are behind bars. Of the rest, one has died while the seven others are believed to be holed up in various countries including the US, Canada, and Libya.

The four in jail filed a leave to appeal with the Supreme Court on July 16, 2001. The petition has yet to be disposed of.

Bazlul Huda was extradited from Thailand on the day the historic verdict was delivered.

Bangabandhu’s killers were granted impunity through an ordinance and successive governments allowed AKM Mohiuddin to represent Bangladesh in a variety of diplomatic posts for about two decades.

The infamous Indemnity Ordinance was repealed and the killers were brought to trial after Sheikh Hasina became prime minister in 1996.

Asked whether the government will take special measures regarding the killings of Bangabandhu and late president Ziaur Rahman, Mainul said the proceedings will be held conventionally.

Foreign Secretary M Touhid Hossain at his office yesterday told reporters that they were not informed of the arrest formally yet and were trying to learn about it through official channels.

It is not mandatory for the US to send Mohiuddin to Bangladesh, as there is no extradition treaty between the countries.

However, a top police official said the government could still request the US authorities to get him onto a Bangladesh-bound flight and then call on the other countries en route to Dhaka not to give him any transit visa.