Published : 18 Apr 2023, 11:42 AM
Updated : 18 Apr 2023, 12:07 PM
A Satkhira court has sentenced four people, including former BNP MP Habibul Islam Habib, to life in prison for an attack on Sheikh Hasina’s motorcade in Satkhira in 2002.
Forty-four other convicts in the case received seven years in prison.
Satkhira Special Tribunal-3 Judge Biswanath Mondol delivered the verdict in two cases over the attack, one under the Arms Act and another under the Explosives Act, on Tuesday.
Of the convicts, 37 were in prison, two were out on bail, and 10 were absconding before the announcement of the verdict.
On Aug 30, 2022, then Leader of the Opposition and Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina went to Satkhira Sadar Hospital to see the wife of a freedom fighter who had been raped.
On the way back to Dhaka, the motorcade was attacked in front of the BNP offices at Kalaroa Upazila. Explosives were detonated, vehicles vandalised, and shots were fired at Sheikh Hasina.
Several Awami League central leaders accompanying Hasina, local activists, and journalists were injured in the attack.
When Moslem Uddin, then general secretary of the Kalaroa Upazila Awami League, tried to file a case over the attack, the police turned him away.
Moslem Uddin then submitted a complaint to a Satkhira court and the court ordered the police station to take the case.
The case was dismissed but revived again by High Court order on Oct 15, 2014.
Police investigated the case and filed charges against 50 people, including former BNP MP Habibul, over the attack.
Three separate cases, one for attempt to murder, one under the Explosive Substances Act, and another under the Weapons Act, were filed. The verdict in the attempt to murder case was delivered on Feb 8, 2021.
Satkhira Chief Judicial Magistrate Humayun Kabir sentenced the 50 suspects to prison sentences of four to 10 years.
The charges in the two other cases were heard on Jun 14 last year, and the suspects were indicted on Jun 17.
After 10 months of the judicial process, the verdict in the two cases was delivered on Tuesday.
