‘The Metropolitan Special Tribunal-1 has handed down death penalty 14,’ the private Samoy TV said soon after Judge SM Mojibur Rahman delivered the verdict in the crowded courtroom amid tight security.
United Liberation Front of Assam’s (ULFA) military wing chief Paresh Barua was sentenced to death in absentia in the sensational 10-truck arms haul case.
Jamaat-e-Islami chief and former minister Matiur Rahman Nizami and ex-junior minister for Home Lutfozzaman Babar in the then Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led rightwing government were also sentenced to death.
Only two of the convicts, Barua and former additional secretary Nurul Amin, were tried in absentia.
The two former generals who were given death penalty are the then DG of the apex National Security Intelligence (NSI) ex-brigadier general Abdur Rahim and former director of Directorate General of Forces Intelligence ex-major general Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury, who later became the NSI chief.
All the accused were tried under the Arms Act for illegal possession of firearms and the Special Powers Act, 1974 for weapon smuggling. Security and law enforcement agencies enforced a tight vigil as the court in south-eastern port city of Chittagong delivered the verdict.
United Liberation Front of Assam’s (ULFA) military wing chief Paresh Barua was sentenced to death in absentia in the sensational 10-truck arms haul case.
Jamaat-e-Islami chief and former minister Matiur Rahman Nizami and ex-junior minister for Home Lutfozzaman Babar in the then Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led rightwing government were also sentenced to death.
Only two of the convicts, Barua and former additional secretary Nurul Amin, were tried in absentia.
The two former generals who were given death penalty are the then DG of the apex National Security Intelligence (NSI) ex-brigadier general Abdur Rahim and former director of Directorate General of Forces Intelligence ex-major general Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury, who later became the NSI chief.
All the accused were tried under the Arms Act for illegal possession of firearms and the Special Powers Act, 1974 for weapon smuggling. Security and law enforcement agencies enforced a tight vigil as the court in south-eastern port city of Chittagong delivered the verdict.