Nizami, Babar among 14 awarded death penalty

Staff Correspondent, CHITTAGONG, Jan 30: Matiur Rahman Nizami and Lutfozzaman Babar among 14 people have been awarded death penalty and life-time imprisonment in smuggling and arms cases respectively in connection with 10-truck arms haul incident in Chittagong.

The Chittagong Special Tribunal-1 Judge SM Mujibur Rahman delivered the verdict on Thursday noon.

The death penalty convicted are  Jamaat-e-Islami chief and former Industries Minister Matiur Rahman Nizami, BNP leader and former State Minister for Home Lutfozzaman Babar, former National Security Intelligence (NSI) Director General  Major General (rtd) Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury,  former NSI Director General Brigadier General (rtd) Abdur Rahim, former NSI Director Wing Commander (rtd) Shahabuddin Ahmad, former NSI Deputy Director Major (rtd) Liakat Hossain Khan,  former Managing Director of CUFL Mohsin Uddin Talukder,  General Manager (Administration) KM Enamul Hoque, former Industries Secretary Nurul Amin , Smugglers Hafizur Rahman, Din Mohammad and Abdus Sobhan and  India’s ULFA leader Paresh Barua.

Earlier, all the 11 accused of the sensational 10-truck arms haul case, including Matiur Rahman Nizami and Lutfozzaman Babar, were produced before Chittagong Metropolitan Session Judge Court.

Deposition on the cases ended on October 10 last year, with 56 people on the arms case and 53 people on the smuggling case giving statements.

A huge quantity of arms and ammunition reportedly seized at the Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Ltd jetty in Chittagong on April 2, 2004, when those were being loaded on to 10 trucks.

Two cases, an arms case and a smuggling case, were filed with Karnaphuli Police Station on the following day.

On June 11, 2004, CID’s ASP Kabir Uddin submitted the chargesheet on the arms case accusing 43 people while charges were pressed against 45 people on the smuggling case on November  9 by CID`s ASP Nawsher Ali Khan.

 

On February 12, 2008, during the tenure of the last caretaker government, the court of Metropolitan Session Judge ANM Bashirullan ordered further investigation into the cases.

The court in its order directed to investigate seven specific points in the further investigation.

ASP Ismail Hossain of the CID carried out the investigation as the fourth investigation officer of the cases but he failed to submit charge sheets even after extension of timeframe for six times.

On January 29, 2009, ASP Moniruzzaman was appointed as the fifth investigation officer after a court order to replace Ismail Hossain on an appeal by the state lawyer.

Moniruzzaman on June 26, 2011 submitted supplementary charge sheets implicating 11 more persons including former Industries Minister Matiur Rahman Nizami, former State Minister for Home Lufozzaman Babar.

 

The port city Chittagong was wrapped under security blanket ahead of announcement of the verdict of arm case.

At least 1,500 members of law enforcing agencies were deployed in the city aim at avoiding any untoward incident. Additional police members were deployed on the court premises.

 

Police seized 4,930 types of sophisticated firearms, 27,020 grenades, 840 rocket launchers, 300 rockets, 2,000 grenade launching tubes, 6,392 magazines and 11,40,520 bullets when they were being loaded on to 10 trucks from two engine-boats at the jetty of the CUFL.

risingbd/mukul