The High Court yesterday sentenced three convicts to life term imprisonment for killing Air Commodore (retd) Ghulam Rabbani who was a prosecution witness in the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman murder case.
The court acquitted an accused who had been earlier given life imprisonment and ordered the trial court to give a fresh verdict in light with the High Court’s observations.
In the landmark verdict that hanged war criminal Abdul Quader Molla, Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha said life imprisonment meant staying in jail until death; the popular thinking that it meant serving only 30 years was a misconception of law.
Those sentenced to life term are Humayun Kabir Chowdhury, former security officer of the Korean Export Processing Zone (KEPZ), Abu Naser Chowdhury, former general manager of KEPZ, and Md Selim. The lower court had also given them life sentence.
The High Court acquitted Abdul Malek Sohel and ordered the lower court to deliver fresh judgement regarding Saiful Islam.
The bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Akram Hossain Chowdhury also ordered all the four except Sohel to surrender within six weeks from the date of receiving copies of the verdict or the order.
Justice Enayet, who pronounced the ruling, said observations on the case would be found in the full text of the verdict. Before pronouncing the judgment, he said investigation and prosecution of the case should have been better.
The High Court said the convicts would also have to pay Tk50,000 as fines, in default of which they would have to serve five more years in jail.
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam, deputy attorney generals Khandaker Diliruzzaman and Mosharaf Hossain Sardaer and Assistant Attorney General Gazi Mamunur Rashid were present when the verdict was pronounced.
Rabbani was an aide-de-camp of slain president Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and a witness in the killing of national four leaders in Dhaka Central Jail.
A gang of armed criminals shot Rabbani, also former MD of KEPZ and former DG of the Shipping Department, in the throat by intercepting his microbus at Muradpur in Chittagong when he was going to the KEPZ on April 11, 2004.
AKM Emtajul Islam, former KEPZ site engineer, filed an attempt of murder case with Panchlaish police station that night.
Rabbani succumbed to his injuries at Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok on April 24 that year. The case was then turned into a murder case.
On April 7, 2005, a speedy trial tribunal gave life imprisonment to Selim, Sohel and Hashem and five years’ jail to Humayun and Naser. However, it acquitted Saiful and Mansur.
Hashem was acquitted from the case later through a High Court judgment. The other convicts appealed against the lower court verdict in 2005 while Emtajul Islam, the informant of the case, filed two revision cases with the High Court, seeking enhancement of punishment to Naser and Saiful.
The bench led by Justice Enayet yesterday delivered the verdict on the appeals and revision cases.
