Prosecution seeks death penalty for 4

The  prosecution yesterday completed arguments and sought capital punishment  for four Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) activists in Prof  Humayun Azad murder case.

The accused are: Salehin alias  Salahuddin, Anwarul Alam alias Anwar, Mizanur Rahman alias Minhaz and  Nur Mohammad. Salehin and Nur are on the run while the remaining two are  in jail.

During the closing arguments, advocate Md Shaiful  Islam, public prosecutor of the case, told the court they were able  to prove the charges against all the accused.

Judge Maksuda Parvin of the Fourth Additional  Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court of Dhaka then set January 24 for  defense lawyers' arguments.

Earlier, the court recorded statements of 42 prosecution witnesses including the complainant of the case.

On  February 27, 2004, JMB activists stabbed the 56-year-old linguist and writer while he was trying to catch a rickshaw to go home from the Ekushey book fair at Bangla Academy in the capital.

After the attack, Azad was treated  at Combined Military Hospital for 26 days.

Then the government sent him to Bangkok for better treatment from where he returned home on recovery after over 47 days.

A  day after the killing attempt, Azad's brother Manjur Kabir filed an  attempted murder case with Ramna Police Station against some unnamed  people.

Dr Azad, a professor of Dhaka University's Bangla  department, died from what an autopsy said was a heart attack in Munich  on August 12, 2004.

The  investigation officer, Criminal  Investigation Department (CID) Inspector Kazi Abdul Malek, submitted a  charge sheet on November 15, 2007 accusing JMB leaders Anwar, Mizanur  and Nur.

JMB leaders Shaekh Abdur Rahman and Ataur Rahman Sunny  were dropped from the charge sheet as they were executed following a  Supreme Court verdict for killing two judges of Jhalakathi on November  14 of 2005.

On April 30, 2012, CID again pressed charges against the five  and appealed for the case to be converted into a murder case.

During the investigation, Mizanur gave a confessional statement before a magistrate. Hafiz Mahmud alias Hassan, another accused in the case, was later  killed in a gunfight with police after he fled from a prison van in  Gazipur.

The court framed charges against the accused on September 10 of 2011.