The three lawyers, held for financing militancy, have confessed to depositing money into a bank account linked to the Shahid Hamza Brigade, but claimed they were only returning an advocacy fee they had taken in advance.
Yesterday, Supreme Court practitioners Barrister Shakila Farzana, daughter of former BNP whip Sayed Wahidul Alam; and Md Hasanuzzaman Liton; and Dhaka judge’s court lawyer Mahfuz Chowdhury Bapon gave confessional statements under the penal code before a Chittagong court, said sources.
Senior Judicial Magistrate Sajjad Hossain recorded the statements of the three lawyers, shown arrest in an explosives case filed with the Banshkhali police station on February 21 after a training centre of the militant group had been busted.
According to court sources, the lawyers said they had received different amounts on various ocassions from Hefazat-e-Islam leaders to fight for the bail of some of their arrested leaders.
After the High Court rejected their clients’ bail petitions, the three lawyers returned the advance payments by depositing money into three bank accounts belonging to a man named Moniruzzaman Masud alias Don. The accounts were in Dutch Bangla Bank, Sonali Bank and Exim Bank.
Shakila, Wahidul and Liton were later sent to jail after the court finished recording their statements in the morning.
Assistant Public Prosecutor Bikash Ranjan Dey said the lawyers had indirectly confessed funding Shahid Hamza Brigade (SHB). They deposited the money to the accounts belonging to Don, who is a leader of the SHB and has no connections with Hefazat.
“They are senior lawyers. They talked technically and did not confess directly,” the state lawyer was quoted as saying by court sources.
Defence counsel Abdus Sattar alleged that RAB had violated rules by not allowing them to talk to their clients before they were taken to the court.
“After recording the statements, we moved a bail plea, which the court rejected,” he said. They had also applied for division for the arrestees in jail but the court ordered the authorities to take measures according to the jail code.
The three lawyers were nabbed by RAB in Dhaka on the night of August 18. Each of them were placed in four-day remands, on the completion of which they were taken to the court yesterday.
RAB yesterday a prayed for a further five-day remand for the trio by showing them arrested in another case filed with the Hathazari police station in connection with the February 19 busting of SBH’s theoretical training centre Al Madrasatul Abu Bakar.
Chittagong district Public Prosecutor Abul Hashem told the Dhaka Tribune that the hearing on showing them arrested in the other case and the second remand prayer was likely to be held today.
According to RAB, SHB – modelled in line with Syria-based international militant group Mujahidin – was formed in November 2013 by 20 former members of the Islami Chhatra Shibir, student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami. Thereafter, the elite force arrested 29 members of the group but their top leader, whose name could not be known, is on the run. Those 29 included the chiefs of the outfit’s five sub-wings – three army, one media and one dawa.
During separate drives from February to June, RAB siezed 25 sophisticated local and foreign-made arms including eight AK 22 rifles, 4,443 rounds of bullet, 76 powerful bombs, 150kg explosives, 30 types of bomb-making materials good enough for making 2,000 bombs, and a large number of documents from the possession and based on the information given by the arrested militants.
