...the elder son of former President of Bangladesh Ziaur Rahman Bir Uttam, and Khaleda Zia, former Prime Minister of Bangladesh. He is the Senior Vice Chairperson of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). His nickname is
Pino. There are allegations that Pino took a rakeoff from every foreign investment into the country while Mom was in office...
assured HuJI
Founded in 1984 by Fazlur Rehman Khalil and Qari Saifullah Aktar. The Bangla branch was established in 1992 with assistance from Osama bin Laden. Recruits come mostly from Deobandi madrassahs. HuJI and Fazlur Rehman Khalil are signators of bin Laden's declaration of war on the west.
chief Mufti Abdul Hannan and his associates that he would arrange a safe passage out of the scene once they carried out the grenade attack on an Awami League rally in 2004, a witness told a Dhaka court yesterday.
Abu Hena Md Yusuf, inspector of Criminal Investigation Department, said this in his deposition to the Speedy Trial Tribunal-1 as a prosecution witness in the August 21 grenade attack cases.
He claimed that Hannan, while on remand in Ramna Batamul blast cases, told him about Tarique's assurance.
After recording Abu Hena's deposition, Judge Shahed Nuruddin fixed June 3 for the next hearing. Defence lawyers will cross-examine the witness on that day.
Twenty-four AL leaders and workers, including Ivy Rahman, were killed and 300 others were maimed in the grenade attack on the AL rally at Bangabandhu Avenue in the capital on August 21, 2004.
The attack was aimed at assassinating AL President Sheikh Hasina
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since 1981. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide..., then leader of the opposition. Hasina narrowly escaped death.
Two cases -- one under the explosive substances act and the other for murder -- were filed after the incident.
Abu Hena told the court that he had earlier investigated the Ramna Batamul blast cases and submitted charge sheets against HuJI chief Hannan and 13 others on November 29, 2008.
During investigation of the Ramna Batamul blast cases in 2005, Abu Hena interrogated Hannan about the grenade and kabooms that took place at different places in the country.
Hannan admitted that he along with his accomplices in 2000 had planted a 76-kg bomb at Kotalipara where Hasina was to address a rally.
They also carried out attacks on Hazrat Shahjalal's shrine in Sylhet, the then Sylhet City Corporation Mayor Badaruddin Kamran, AL leader Suranjit Sengupta and former British High Commissioner Anwar Hossain Choudhury.
The HuJI chief told the CID official that he along with Moulana Tajuddin, brother of former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu, held a meeting at Pintu's Dhanmondi residence to plot the August 21 grenade attack.
Hannan told his accomplices that during a meeting at Hawa Bhaban, Tarique assured him that all the attackers would be provided safe passage out of the scene after the attack, and that Tarique communicated the matter to the then state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar.
On assurance from Tarique, elder son of the then prime minister
Khaleda ZiaThree-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ...
, Hannan collected grenades from Tajuddin and gave those to his accomplices to stage the attack.
The CID official recorded Hannan's statements in writing during the investigation.
Abu Hena submitted the written statement to his superiors -- the then additional Inspector General of Police Khoda Baksh Chowdhury, CID Special Superintendent of Police Ruhul Amin and ASP Munshi Atiqur Rahman.
He also told them that Hannan would make a confessional statement before a Dhaka court.
The high-ups got upset with the CID official, as he included information on the August 21 grenade attack in his written statement. They directed him to drop the information and record a confessional statement only on the Ramna blasts.
The CID official complied with the instructions of his superiors.
Hannan later made a confessional statement to the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court but he did not mention anything about the August 21 grenade attack, Hena said.
Of the 52 accused in the grenade attack cases, Babar, Jamaat-e-Islami
...
The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka
The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an
independentbranch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed and 24 others, who are now in jug, were produced before the court yesterday.
Seven other accused, including former Dhaka City Corporation ward councillor Ariful Islam Arif, now out on bail, were present at the court.
Tarique and 18 other accused have been shown absconding in the cases.
The CID on July 3, 2011, included Abu Hena as a prosecution witness in the charge sheets of the cases since he was present at the AL rally during the grenade attack.