Foreign observers to hear Dhaka cafe attack verdict announcement in court

Foreign observers alongside the local ones will attend the announcement of the judgment in a case over the carnage by militants at a cafe in Dhaka’s Gulshan around three and a half years ago.

The law-enforcement has taken extra security measures in the court area as Dhaka’s Anti-Terrorism Special Tribunal is set to deliver the verdict on Wednesday.

Officials of the missions, whose countries lost their citizens to the attack, are expected to come to hear the verdict.

The 20 diners killed in the attack included 17 foreigners – nine of them Italians, seven Japanese and one Indian. The Japanese nationals were working at the Dhaka Metrorail Project.

All eyes of the world were on the Holey Artisan Bakery when the militants took around 30 people hostage in the evening of July 1, 2016. The siege ended with a commando raid in which five attackers were killed.

The members of a revived faction of the Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh or Neo-JMB carried out the attack to destabilise Bangladesh and turn it into a militant state, police said in the charges brought against the accused.

The brutal killings of the foreigners aimed to belittle Bangladesh in the international arena, according to the charge sheet.

Humayun Kabir, an inspector of police’s Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit who investigated the attack, told bdnews24.com representatives of Japan and several other countries would come to the court to attend the delivery of the verdict.

Abu Obaidur Rahman Tagar, a representative of the National Center for State Court, which is funded by the US State Department, said he would come to observe the verdict.

Zafar Hossain, a deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said the courtroom where the verdict will be delivered is used by both the anti-terror tribunal and the Speedy Trial Tribunal-3.

The two judges will decide who would sit first on Wednesday, Zafar said.

Golam Sarwar Khan Zakir, the lawyer for the state, told bdnews24.com the court will sit around 12pm.

Judge Md Mojibur Rahman will announce the decision shortly after taking his seat.

Police started preparing for the verdict on Tuesday. Zafar said access to the courtroom will be restricted.