A death row convict in the 10-truck arms haul case has died after contracting the coronavirus.
Abdur Rahim, a former chief of the National Security Intelligence (NSI), died early on Sunday at Dhaka’s Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital.
The retired brigadier general was moved from the Kashimpur prison to a hospital in Gazipur on July 26 after his test came back positive.
He was later transferred to Dhaka as his condition worsened, which was handled by the Dhaka Central Jail authorities.
“He was admitted to the Covid unit of the hospital on July 31 and died on Sunday,” Dhaka Jailer Mahabubul Islam told Bangla Tribune.
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In 2014, a Chittagong court sentenced Rahim and 13 other people, including BNP leader and former state minister Lutfuzzaman Babar, to death, in connection with a massive arms haul in the port city that took the nation by surprise.
On April 2, 2004, police seized 10 trucks of weapons and ammunition from the state-owned Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Ltd (CUFL) jetty in Chittagong while those were being offloaded from trawlers in the early hours.
Around 1,500 wooden boxes containing submachine guns, AK-47 assault rifles, submachine carbines, Chinese pistols, rocket shells and launchers, hand grenades and bullets were seized.
The seizure of the huge cache of arms had triggered widespread uproar.