Visiting US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen E. Biegun has assured Bangladesh of extending cooperation in repatriating Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s convicted absconding killer Rashed Chowdhury to Bangladesh.
Foreign Minister Dr A K Abdul Momen raised the issue during his meeting with Biegun on Thursday at the state guesthouse Padma.
“We have good news about it (repatriation of the killer) … he (Biegun) said the US attorney general is looking into it,” Dr Momen said at the joint press briefing after the meeting.
The government had traced out Bangabandhu’s two convicted furtive killers – Rashed Chowdhury and Noor Chowdhury – residing in the USA and Canada respectively, while the whereabouts of other three fugitives –Khandaker Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haque Dalim, and Moslehuddin Khan – are yet to be ascertained.
After knowing the locations of the two killers, the Foreign Ministry and the Law Ministry have been deeply engaged with the US and the Canadian authorities to bring back these two absconding murderers.
Dhaka has sought cooperation from all the countries across the world to detect the rest three fugitive convicted killers and send them here to help Bangladesh in establishing the rule of law.
The foreign minister, earlier in several occasions, expressed his optimism of bringing back Rashed Chowdhury to the country within the ‘Mujib Year’, marking the birth centenary of Bangabandhu.
Earlier, in a development, US Attorney General William Barr has recently reopened a case against Rashed Chowdhury, the absconding killer of Bangladesh’s founding father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
“Barr’s move is the first step in a process that could result in Chowdhury losing asylum after more than a decade and potentially facing deportation,” according to the US's media report.
The government has been lobbying hard for Chowdhury’s extradition. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also wrote to President Donald Trump to return him to Bangladesh.
Bangabandhu was killed along with the other members of his family on the fateful night of August 15 in 1975.
His daughters – Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her sister Sheikh Rehana – survived as they were abroad at that time.
The killers were awarded by the subsequent military governments with jobs and diplomatic postings in different countries.
An indemnity ordinance was also issued after the gruesome killing giving legal immunity to the killers.
The ordinance was scrapped in the parliament only after the Awami League came back to power 21 years after the murder in 1996.
For two decades after the coup, Rashed Chowdhury worked as a diplomat, stationed in Bangladesh’s embassies around the world.
In 1996, when Awami League came back to power, he was the top diplomat at Bangladesh’s embassy in Brazil—and was soon summoned home.
Fearing reprisal, he fled to the United States with his wife and son.
Chowdhury and his family arrived in the U.S. in 1996 on visitor visas. Within two months, they’d applied for asylum, according to the Politico.
Twelve ex-military officers were sentenced to death for the killing of the Father of the Nation and his family members.
Of them, five sacked army personnel – Syed Farooq Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed, Mohiuddin Ahmed and Bazlul Huda – were hanged at Dhaka Central Jail on January 28, 2010, while another convict, sacked colonel Rashed Pasha, died a natural death in Zimbabwe while he was on the run.
Farooq Rahman, Shahriar Rashid Khan, Mohiuddin Ahmed of artillery faced the trials in the judge court while Huda was extradited from Thailand and Mohiuddin was sent back from the United States after the then district judge Golam Rasul delivered the judgment.
On April 12, sacked military captain Abdul Majed, hiding in India, was arrested in Bangladesh and hanged at Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj.
