A Dhaka court on Thursday (August 17) 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.

The 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.

The court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Asaduzzaman Noor passed the order on Thursday.

Besides, they were also fined Tk5,000 each, in default of which they will have to serve three more months in jail.

According to the case document, Shafik, Mahmudur, Mamun, and several other leaders of BNP and its allied political parties had met in several places – both in Dhaka and in New York and the UK – in 2011 and plotted to abduct and kill Joy in the US. 

BDST: 2134 HRS, AUG 17, 2023
MN