US law firm hired
The government has again appointed a US-based law firm to take necessary steps for bringing fugitive killers of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman back home from North American countries, including the USA and Canada.
Law Minister Anisul Huq told The Daily Star yesterday that the government has so far traced only two convicts -- Nur Chowdhury in Canada and Rashed Chowdhury in the USA.
“If other convicts stay in the North American countries, the law firm will fight for bringing them back to Bangladesh,” he said without elaborating.
Two law ministry high officials, requesting anonymity, told The Daily Star that the ministry had recently given its positive opinion to a foreign ministry's proposal about appointing a law firm for fighting the legal battle to bring the killers of Bangabandhu back home.
They said the law ministry had permitted the foreign ministry to appoint Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates -- Skadden in short. The deal was made around three months ago.
The firm has to be paid $50,000 in retainer payment and hourly fees for two of its lawyers -- Gregory B Craig and Alex Haskell -- $1,275 and $700 respectively, they said.
The officials, however, could not say specifically the period for the retainer payment.
In 2011, the government had appointed Canadian law firm Torys LLP to help the government bring back Nur Chowdhury.
But the firm failed to do that since the Canadian government had refused to deport him to Bangladesh as Canada doesn't send any convict to a country that has the death penalty, a law ministry official said.
The fugitive killers are now in the USA, Canada, Libya and Pakistan, he said, adding that the foreign ministry would now do the needful as the government would bear the expenses for the law firm.
The absconding killers of Bangabandhu are Khandaker Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haque Dalim, Nur Chowdhury, Rashed Chowdhury, Abdul Mazed and Moslehuddin Khan.
A few years ago, the Interpol had issued warrants of arrest for the killers who had reportedly been changing location to evade arrest.
The government had earlier thought both Mazed and Moslehuddin had been hiding in India, but the Indian government could not trace them. Rashid was reportedly running a construction business in Libya and Dalim had been living in Pakistan.
The trial in Bangabandhu assassination case started in Dhaka in 1997, 22 years after disgruntled army men mowed down him and most of his family members on August 15, 1975.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on November 19, 2009, upheld the death penalty of 12 convicted ex-army officers for the assassination.
Five of the convicts -- Syed Farooq Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed, and Mohiuddin Ahmed -- were hanged on January 27, 2010, while a sixth convict, Aziz Pasha, died in Zimbabwe in 2001.
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