Case closed: Jamaat leader sentenced to death

Bangladesh court rules on arms smuggling racket.

CHITTAGONG:

A Bangladesh court sentenced the leader of the country’s Jamaat-e-Islami party and 13 others to death over a huge 2004 arms smuggling racket, sparking fears of new political unrest. Motiur Rahman Nizami, 70, leader of the party, was convicted and sentenced over the racket involving 10 truckloads of arms seized by police a decade ago at a Bangladesh port.

“This is an unprecedented case and all those accused have got due justice,” prosecutor Kamaluddin Ahmed told AFP from Chittagong. Prosecutors said Nizami, who was industries minister at the time, helped unload the weapons, including 4,930 firearms and 27,020 grenades destined for a rebel group across the border in northeast India. The weapons, most of which were made in a Beijing factory, also included 300 rockets, 2,000 grenade launching tubes, 6,392 ammunition magazines and 1.14 million bullets, according to Ahmed.

Nizami, who has led the JI in Bangladesh for more than a decade, was among 50 people charged with smuggling, arms possession and other offences over the cache, thought to be the largest haul in the country’s history.



Among the 14 sentenced to death was ex-home minister Lotfuzzaman Babar, former chiefs of the two main intelligence agencies and other officials in the then government.

One of India’s most wanted men, Paresh Baruah, leader of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), was also handed the death penalty in absentia over the weapons which were meant to help his group’s separatist struggle. Baruah has long been on the run.

Security was tight as the judge delivered his long-awaited decision. Extra police and elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) officers were deployed in key areas, amid concerns of protests.

Defence lawyer Kamrul Islam Sazzad told AFP they would appeal, rejecting the verdict as ‘politically motivated’.  

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st, 2014.