‘Plot to hit PM’s residence’: Suspended pilot makes confessional statement

Suspended Biman Bangladesh Airlines Co-pilot Sabbir Emam Sabbir who was arrested for “planning to hit the residence of the prime minister with an aircraft”, today confessed to a magistrate.

Rapid Action Battalion also brought allegation against Sabbir for taking a plane along with passengers to the IS base in Syria.   

Metropolitan Magistrate Md Sarafuzzaman Ansari recorded Sabbir’s confessional statement at his chamber for over three hours after Investigation Officer Sub-Inspector Amirul Islam of Rab-4 brought him on expiry of his seven-day remand.

However, details of the confessional statement could not be known immediately.

After the recording, the magistrate sent Sabbir to Keraniganj Central Jail.

The Rab arrested Sabbir, his mother Sultana Parvin, their relative Asifur Rahman Asif, and local tea-stall owner Alam after raiding several places of Mirpur on October 31.

The following day, they were placed on different terms of remand.

Meantime, Biman Bangladesh Airlines suspended Sabbir hours after Rab arrested him on October 31 on militancy charges.

Sabbir is the son of Habibullah Bahar Azad, the arrested owner of a building raided by the Rab in the capital's Darussalam area around two months ago.

During the operation, Abdullah alias Meer Akrabul Karim, a suspected JMB leader, was killed along with his two wives, two children and two of his associates in massive explosions inside their apartment. The force claimed those were suicide blasts.

Mufti Mahmud Khan, director (legal and media wing) of Rab on October 31 claimed that Sabbir was planning either to carry out a suicide attack on the houses of government high-ups with an aircraft or kidnap passengers of an aircraft and take it to a country in the Middle East.