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2 sentenced to death in Bangladesh for killing blogger - SFGate
2 sentenced to death in Bangladesh for killing blogger
New York Times
Published 5:20 pm, Thursday, December 31, 2015
DHAKA, Bangladesh — A court in Bangladesh sentenced two people to death and six others to prison terms Thursday for killing a secular blogger and activist in 2013, the first sentences in a series of killings of bloggers in Bangladesh.
Among the eight men convicted in the killing of the blogger, Rajib Haider, was Jasimuddin Rahmani, the leader of a banned Islamic militant group, Ansarullah Bangla Team, who is currently in prison. Rahmani received a five-year sentence for inciting the other men to kill Haider, said Mahbubur Rahman, a state prosecutor.
Haider, an architect and blogger who was critical of the Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh, was hacked to death by machete-wielding assailants on the road near his home in Dhaka, the capital, in February 2013. The assailants were students at a private university, Rahman said.
Atmosphere of fear
Two of the students, Faisal Bin Nayeem and Redwanul Azad Rana, were sentenced to death, although Rana, who graduated from North South University in Dhaka, remained a fugitive. One of the other assailants — all of whom attended the same college and were already in prison — was sentenced to life. Four of the students were convicted of helping to plan the killing by identifying Haider and staking out his home, Rahman said. Three were given 10-year sentences and one a three-year sentence.
Four other bloggers and a publisher have been killed in Bangladesh over the past year amid a rise in violence against liberal secular activists critical of Islamist parties.
The killings have contributed to an atmosphere of fear in Bangladesh, and some public figures have avoided openly discussing the threat posed by radical Islamists in recent months.
Seven of the eight convicted of killing Haider had confessed their participation in the murder and said that Rana, who is still at large, organized the attack, Rahman, the prosecutor, said.
“Confessional statements of the accused, recovered machetes and mobile SIM cards and some other evidences helped to prove the charges against the eight accused beyond reasonable doubt,” he said.
“I believe this first verdict in any blogger killing case is very significant,” Rahman added. “Because fanatic killers would get the message from this judgment that they can’t evade trial and punishment.”
Encouraging step
But Rahman also said that he was somewhat dissatisfied with the verdict: He had expected that at least five of the men would receive a death sentence, and said that he would appeal the decision to a higher court.
The lawyer for Rahmani, the Islamist leader, said that he would appeal to a higher court as well.
The victim’s father, Mohammad Nazimuddin, was in court Thursday to hear the verdict.
He said he was “very sad and disheartened by the verdict” because the police had still failed to arrest Rana, the chief planner of his son’s murder. He added that he had hoped that all of the men would have received the death penalty.
The convictions marked “a long overdue but encouraging first step in addressing the violence directed against bloggers in Bangladesh,” Sumit Galhotra, the Asia research associate at the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement issued Thursday.
He added that until the planner of the attack was apprehended, “justice remained incomplete.”
2 sentenced to death in Bangladesh for killing blogger
New York Times
Published 5:20 pm, Thursday, December 31, 2015
DHAKA, Bangladesh — A court in Bangladesh sentenced two people to death and six others to prison terms Thursday for killing a secular blogger and activist in 2013, the first sentences in a series of killings of bloggers in Bangladesh.
Among the eight men convicted in the killing of the blogger, Rajib Haider, was Jasimuddin Rahmani, the leader of a banned Islamic militant group, Ansarullah Bangla Team, who is currently in prison. Rahmani received a five-year sentence for inciting the other men to kill Haider, said Mahbubur Rahman, a state prosecutor.
Haider, an architect and blogger who was critical of the Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh, was hacked to death by machete-wielding assailants on the road near his home in Dhaka, the capital, in February 2013. The assailants were students at a private university, Rahman said.
Atmosphere of fear
Two of the students, Faisal Bin Nayeem and Redwanul Azad Rana, were sentenced to death, although Rana, who graduated from North South University in Dhaka, remained a fugitive. One of the other assailants — all of whom attended the same college and were already in prison — was sentenced to life. Four of the students were convicted of helping to plan the killing by identifying Haider and staking out his home, Rahman said. Three were given 10-year sentences and one a three-year sentence.
Four other bloggers and a publisher have been killed in Bangladesh over the past year amid a rise in violence against liberal secular activists critical of Islamist parties.
The killings have contributed to an atmosphere of fear in Bangladesh, and some public figures have avoided openly discussing the threat posed by radical Islamists in recent months.
Seven of the eight convicted of killing Haider had confessed their participation in the murder and said that Rana, who is still at large, organized the attack, Rahman, the prosecutor, said.
“Confessional statements of the accused, recovered machetes and mobile SIM cards and some other evidences helped to prove the charges against the eight accused beyond reasonable doubt,” he said.
“I believe this first verdict in any blogger killing case is very significant,” Rahman added. “Because fanatic killers would get the message from this judgment that they can’t evade trial and punishment.”
Encouraging step
But Rahman also said that he was somewhat dissatisfied with the verdict: He had expected that at least five of the men would receive a death sentence, and said that he would appeal the decision to a higher court.
The lawyer for Rahmani, the Islamist leader, said that he would appeal to a higher court as well.
The victim’s father, Mohammad Nazimuddin, was in court Thursday to hear the verdict.
He said he was “very sad and disheartened by the verdict” because the police had still failed to arrest Rana, the chief planner of his son’s murder. He added that he had hoped that all of the men would have received the death penalty.
The convictions marked “a long overdue but encouraging first step in addressing the violence directed against bloggers in Bangladesh,” Sumit Galhotra, the Asia research associate at the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement issued Thursday.
He added that until the planner of the attack was apprehended, “justice remained incomplete.”
