Nizami, Babar among 14 to hang

A special court in Chittagong today handed death penalty to 14 including Jamaat chief and then industries minister Motiur Rahman Nizami and then state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar for smuggling in 10 truckloads of firearms in 2004.
The condemned convicts include five intelligence officials, including former DGFI (Directorate General of Forces Intelligence) director Maj Gen (retd) Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury, former National Security Intelligence (NSI) director general Brig Gen (retd) Abdur Rahim and deputy director Maj (retd) Liakat Hossain.
The court also awarded death penalty to Paresh Barua, military commander of Indian separatist group United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa) which was allegedly going to receive the arms.
Of the condemned victims, who have also been awarded life term imprisonment in another case filed under the Arms Act, Paresh Barua and former additional secretary of industries ministry Nurul Amin have been absconding since the arms cache recovery.
“The verdict has been delivered on receiving permission from High Court division,” Judge SM Mojibur Rahman of the Chittagong Metropolitan Special Tribunal-1, said.
The other condemned convicts are: ex-NSI field officer Akbar Hossain Khan, former CUFL general manager (admin) Enamul Hoque, ex-managing director of CUFL Mohsin Talukder, former NSI director Wing Commander (retd) Shahab Uddin, smuggler and prime accused Hafizur Rahman, Abdus Sobhan and Deen Islam.
The huge cache of arms and ammunition which included 4,930 sophisticated firearms of different types, 840 rocket launchers, 300 rockets, 27,020 grenades, 2,000 grenade-launching tubes, 6,392 magazines and 11.41 million bullets were recovered on April 2, 2004 at the jetty of Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Ltd (CUFL).