Immigration police arrested him on his arrival at Zia International Airport (ZIA) at 12:18pm and took him straight to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court, Dhaka. From there, the ex-army major who was tried in absentia for his part in the gruesome August killings was sent to Dhaka Central Jail.

The US Homeland Security got him on board a flight to Dhaka after a district court in Los Angeles on June 14 ruled that it could not overturn an immigration judge's order for his deportation.

The immigration case dragged on for years as he appealed the deportation order issued against him in 2002. On February 27, a judge in the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco allowed the order to stand.

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials arrested Mohiuddin at his house in Los Angeles on March 13. Since then, the government has been after bringing him back to the country.

SCENES AT ZIA
Sentenced to life also for aiding and abetting the killing of the four national leaders on November 3, 1975, Mohiuddin was taken out of the Thai Airways flight TG 321 amid tight security.

Two US Homeland Security officials who were escorting the condemned convict on flight handed him over to the immigration police. In handcuffs, he was first taken to the room of the Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Immigration at the ZIA and given a bullet-proof vest and a helmet.

Around half an hour later, the police whisked him away through the international green channel. A prison van parked outside started for the CMM Court with six Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and police vans in pursuit.

Hours before the flight carrying Mohiuddin had landed, a huge number of Rab, police and members of different intelligence agencies took position in and around the ZIA.

COURT
Mohiuddin was produced before the court of Metropolitan Magistrate Shafique Anwar through crowds of press photographers and onlookers at 1:40pm. Clad in a cream shirt and pants, he was wearing the helmet and the bullet-proof vest.

In the forwarding report, OC of Airport Police Station Ruhul Amin told the court that Maj (retired) Mohiuddin, son of late Abul Hossain Talukder of Rangabali in Patuakhali, was a fugitive convict in Bangabandhu murder case filed with Dhanmondi Police Station on October 2, 1996.

He is also an absconding accused in Sheikh Fazlul Haq Moni murder case filed with Mohammadpur Police Station in November 1996 and Abdur Rob Serniabat murder case with Ramna Police Station in October 1996.

Warrants for his arrest in all the cases are pending with Rangabali Police Station of Patuakhali.

Prosecutor of the Bangabandhu murder case Mosharraf Hossain Kajal told the court that the convict has been absconding since the case was filed against him. He petitioned the court to order for Mohiuddin to be shown arrested in the Bangabandhu murder case and sent to the condemned cell.

After hearing, the court ordered to send the convict to Dhaka central Jail as there was no prayer on his behalf.

The court also directed the authorities concerned to send the copies of the order to the trial court and other authorities concerned.

BACKGROUND
A trial court in 1998 sentenced him to death along with 14 other former and dismissed army men for killing Bangabandhu and 26 others including his wife, three sons, two daughters-in-law, brother, close relatives, and security men.

The High Court on April 30, 2001 upheld the punishment of 12. However, a leave to appeal petition by four of the convicts in jail--Lt Col Syed Farooq Rahman, Lt Col Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Lt Col Mohiuddin and Maj Bazlul Huda-- remains to be disposed of by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court.

Legal experts said there is no bar to execution of Mohiuddin as he did not file a regular appeal against the High Court verdict.

They said though the time for filing an appeal against the HC verdict ended long before, he would still be able to file an application for leave to appeal and in that case, the Appellate Division would decide whether to grant the permission.

With Mohiuddin, now five of the convicts are behind bars, one has died while six are believed to be holed up overseas.

When Awami League (AL) led by Sheikh Hasina, one of Bangabandhu's two surviving daughters, came to power in 1996, Mohiuddin was serving as a diplomat in a Middle-Eastern country.

The then government asked him to report to the foreign ministry, but he did not comply with the order, and instead fled to the US on a visitor's visa. Since then, he had been fighting a long legal battle for asylum there.

After the US decided to deport him, Mohiuddin's family made appeals for asylum in Canada but to no avail.

The AL government took measures for extradition of the killers, but could not finish the job during its tenure. It managed to get back only Bazlul Huda from Thailand.

In the post-75 setting, the killers were granted impunity through infamous Indemnity Ordinance and successive governments allowed Mohiuddin and others to represent Bangladesh in a variety of diplomatic posts for about two decades.