A Dhaka court yesterday issued an arrest warrant against BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir in a defamation case which accused the leader of calling Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina “a killer” and the Awami League “a party of killers.”
Metropolitan Magistrate Md Ataul Haque passed the order after the complainant sought for a warrant of arrest as Mirza Fakhrul did not appear before the court yesterday.
The court directed jail authorities to show Fakhrul as arrested, as he was currently detained in jail in other cases. The court also ordered the jail authority concerned to produce Mirza Fakhrul before the court on March 12.
On September 1, 2014, SM Nur-e-Alam Siddique, vice-president of Bangladesh Awami Motshojibi League – the ruling party’s fishermen wing – lodged the defamation case against Mirza Fakhrul with the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court.
The plaintiff said the BNP leader had defamed the premier and the ruling party through his comments at a press conference on August 24 last year. “I saw reports on Fakhrul’s remarks on different dailies on August 25. His speech tarnished the image of the prime minister at home and abroad,” Nur said.
At the August 24 programme, Mirza Fakhrul said: “The Awami League president [Sheikh Hasina] herself is a killer. Her party is a party of killers. Her hands are stained with the bloods of hundreds of young people.”
He made the comment three days after Hasina had termed the Zia family – a family of killers. She said BNP founder Ziaur Rahman had been involved in the killing of Bangabandhu while Khaleda Zia, her son Tarique Rahman and her cabinet members in the August 21 grenade attack.
