State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam today urged the United States to hand over Bangabandhu’s self-confessed convicted killer Rashed Chowdhury, showing respect to the law of Bangladesh.
“We don’t know exactly why, at whose behest and for what purpose they (US) are not handing over him (Rashed Chowdhury),” he said.
Alam was speaking at a protest rally organized by Bangladesh Awami Swechchhasebak League on August 17, 2005, on the 18th anniversary of the series bomb blasts in 63 districts across the country by the militant organization JMB.
The state minister said that the US is profoundly vocal on the question of human rights and democracy and Bangladesh considers the US as a friendly country but it gives Bangladeshis pain and make frustrated when the US shelters the killer of the Father of the Nation.
The government so far traced out Bangabandhu’s two convicted fugitive killers – Rashed Chowdhury and Noor Chowdhury – residing in the USA and Canada respectively, while the whereabouts of other three fugitives -Khandaker Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haque Dalim and Moslehuddin Khan – are yet to be ascertained.
“The killers of Bangabandhu are still on the run. We know about two cases — one in the United States and another in Canada. The whereabouts of three other fugitive convicts are still unknown,” Momen said.
After tracing the locations of the two killers, the Foreign Ministry and the Law Ministry have been deeply engaged with the US and the Canadian authorities to bring back these two absconding murderers.
Earlier, Momen said the Foreign Ministry had sent letters to all missions abroad as part of the campaign to hunt down the fugitive killers.
A total of 12 sacked military officers were sentenced to death after a protracted trial process while six were executed by now and one embraced natural death abroad.
Three of the six executed assassins were brought back from three countries – Thailand, the United States and India — after their trial in absentia.
Source: BSS