Plot to kill Joy: Conviction warrant withdrawn against Shafik Rehman

A Dhaka court today withdrew its conviction warrant issued against senior journalist Shafik Rehman after his surrender before a Dhaka court in a case filed over plotting to abduct and kill Sajeeb Wazed Joy, son of the ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
The home ministry on September 22 suspended Shafik’s punishment for one-year upon his surrender before the trial court and filing of an appeal challenging the sentence.
On August 17 last year, Shafik was sentenced to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment in the case in his absence and issued a conviction warrant against him.
Today, Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Md Mahbubul Haque withdrew the conviction warrant after Shafik through his lawyer surrendered before it, seeking bail in the case.
Soon after the order, Shafik told journalists that the case was filed against him and others just to harass him. The place of occurrence is abroad but police filed the case with Paltan Police Station to malign their image in the society, he said.
Mohammad Ullah Mamun, vice-president of Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangskritik Sangstha; his son Rizvi Ahmed Caesar; and Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan, a businessman in the US, were also sentenced to seven years in their absence.
The court also fined each of them Tk 5,000, failing to pay which will result in an additional three months in prison.
During the trial, the court recorded statements of Joy and 11 other prosecution witnesses.
After the case was filed on August 3, 2015, by the Detective Branch of police, Shafik and Mahmudur Rahman, acting editor of now-defunct daily Amar Desh, were arrested.
The DB pressed charges against the accused on February 20, 2018, mentioning Shafik and Mahmudur as the masterminds.
Mamun aided and abetted the accused, the charge sheet added. Rizvi collected information on Joy from the FBI and gave it to the others.
According to the complaint, Mamun and several top leaders of the BNP and its allies met in the UK, the US and different places in Bangladesh before September 2012 and plotted to abduct and kill Joy.
In March 2015, a US court convicted Rizvi of bribing an FBI special agent for information on a Bangladeshi political figure.
The US justice department did not name the politician.
In a Facebook post on March 9, 2015, Joy accused BNP leaders of conspiring to abduct and kill him.
Shafik, aged over 85, is also a British citizen. He worked for various media outlets.
Yesterday, Mahmudur Rahman was sent to jail after his surrender before the same court in the case.