Bangabandhu killer status-less in Canada

A senior Foreign Ministry official said Noor’s political asylum application was refused in 2006 and that time the death sentence verdict against him was pending with the Appellate Division of the High Court. Another senior government official said his diplomatic passport was returned to the Bangladesh High Commission to Ottawa in 2006 and Canada also expressed its interest to send him back to Dhaka. He said at that time, a political transition was taking place in Bangladesh and there was no strong effort in bringing him back. Getting a breathing space of couple of months, Noor appointed one of the best Canadian immigration lawyers, Barbara Jackson, and filed an application with the Office of the Canadian Attorney General in mid-2007. Noor’s application is still pending with the office, he said. Noor resorted to a “pre-removal risk assessment,” saying he would face death penalty if he went back to Bangladesh. According to their law, Canada does not send back any foreign national convict who faces death penalty in his or her own country. Former law minister Shafique Ahmed told the Dhaka Tribune that he met his Canadian counterpart in 2009 to extradite the killer, but they said laws restricted them to deport any death penalty convict. Shafique said the government should have appointed a constitutional lawyer in Canada to pursue the deportation case, but instead a commercial lawyer was appointed before the Awami League government took over power in 2009. When asked the reason, he said, “I do not know the reason.” Noor, now a Toronto resident, does not have status and does not enjoy any benefit from Canada; on regular interval, he has to go to immigration office to show his presence, said another official. When asked how he bears the expenses of the best lawyer in Canada and his living expenditure, he said: “We have no idea. But we guess somebody must pay his bills.” The government in 2011 requested Canada to deport him to the US so that he could be brought back to Bangladesh from there but it was refused by the authorities, he added. “When the request was made in 2011, the reply was if they agreed now, they had to deport many other,” the official said. Noor, an army officer, is one of the 12 killers who were convicted of killing Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family in 1975. He fled the country in November 1975 and was inducted into the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry in 1976. He held posts of charge’d affairs, counselor and minister in different missions.