B’desh charges oppn BNP leader over Italian’s murder

The chargesheet was submitted to a Dhaka magistrate court on Monday against seven persons including former Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) ward commissioner MA Kayum in the murder of Italian national Ceasre Tavella, Dhaka metro police Deputy Commissioner Masudur Rahman said.

Rahman said that except two, all the accused including Kayum are in police custody, bdnews24 reported.

Four suspects were arrested in October and all of them had confessed to the killing. The fifth suspect, Kayum’s brother Matin, was arrested in November.

Tavella, 50, was shot dead in a high security diplomatic area in Dhaka on September 28, the first attack in Bangladesh claimed by the dreaded Islamic State terror group that had prompted many embassies of Western countries to restrict the movements of their diplomats.

Tavella, who was working for the Netherlands-based ICCO Cooperation as manager of its Profitable Opportunities for Food Security project, was shot thrice from a close proximity in Dhaka’s Gulshan diplomatic zone while he was jogging, police said.  In a statement issued in Arabic, the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL) claimed that it killed Tavella, SITE Intelligence Group 

said.