Court jails Bangabandhu murder convict’s son-in-law for 7 years for supporting the killers

Convict Fuad Zaman, a school teacher and husband of Shahriar Rashid’s daughter Shehnaz Rashid Khan, showed support to the killers in a Facebook post

A tribunal has sentenced Fuad Zaman, son-in-law of Bangabandhu murder convict Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, to seven years in jail for belittling the Father of the Nation by supporting his killers.

Cyber Tribunal judge Mohammad Ash-Shams Joglul Hossain on Thursday also fined Fuad Tk 5,000 in the case under the ICT Act on Thursday, state counsel Nazrul Islam Shamim said. Fuad will have to serve one more month in jail if he fails to pay the fine.

The convict, a school teacher and husband of Shahriar Rashid’s daughter Shehnaz Rashid Khan, was sent to jail after the verdict.

Mohammad Nazmul Ahsan Pias, a member of the Bangabandhu Engineers’ Council at Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology, filed the case in August 2018 after Fuad wrote a Facebook post supporting the killers of independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Fuad was arrested the next month.

The court framed charges against him in January 2021 and heard seven witnesses during the trial.

A group of army officers killed Bangabandhu and most members of his family on Aug 15, 1975, within four years of Bangladesh’s independence under his leadership. The military government that took charge afterwards passed a law giving indemnity to the killers.

The path for their trial opened after the Awami League returned to power in 1996. Following a delay during the BNP-Jamaat-e-Islami government, the trial ended after the Awami League won the 2008 election.

Shahriar Rashid and four other convicts in the case were hanged in January 2010.