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Published : 27 Apr 2025, 04:49 PM
The appeal hearing on journalist Shafik Rehman's seven-year jail sentence in a case over an alleged plot to abduct and kill Sajeeb Wazed Joy, the son of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, has been completed.
Shafik’s lawyer described the case as "harassment" and urged the court to acquit him. The prosecution said it had "no objection" to Shafik’s acquittal.
Dhaka Additional Sessions Court Judge Tariq Ejaz said the date for the verdict would be announced later.
Lawyer Syed Zainul Abedin Mezbah argued on behalf of Shafik during the hearing.
“This so-called case is over a plot to abduct and kill Hasina’s son Joy. The victim did not file the case himself. Police filed it on their own initiative. The defendant is a 90-year-old who was taken into remand. There is no confessional statement in the case,” he said.
“Twelve witnesses testified in the case. The day Joy testified, we saw the judge running after him after recording his testimony. That should tell you what type of trial it has been.”
Besides Jai Jai Din Editor Shafik, Amar Desh Editor Mahmudur Rahman and three others were sentenced to seven years in jail. The others are Mohammad Ullah Mamun, vice-president of pro-BNP organisation Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangskritik Sangstha, his son Rizve Ahmed Caesar, and Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan, a businessman living in the US.
Among them, Mahmudur has been acquitted.
Calling the case “false" and a form of "harassment”, Zainul said: “We seek his [Shafik's] acquittal.”
Additional Public Prosecutor Khalilur Rahman said: “It was a politically motivated case. He [Shafik] is a respected journalist. We have no objection to his acquittal.”
Shafik was present during the hearing.
The veteran journalist had earlier spent five months in jail in 2016 after his arrest in the case. He secured bail and left for the United Kingdom in 2018, returning home on Aug 18, 2024, after six years abroad.
The government had deferred his sentence by one year on the condition that he surrender to the court and appeal the verdict, which he did on Nov 21 last year.
Following his surrender, the court accepted his appeal and granted him bail on a Tk 5,000 bond.
