A Dhaka court on Thursday convicted and sentenced five people, including journalist Shafik Rehman and daily Amar Desh Editor Mahmudur Rahman, to seven-year imprisonment in a case for plotting to abduct and murder Prime Minister's Information and Communication Technology Affairs Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy in the US in 2015.
The other convicts in the case are – Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangskritik Sangstha (Jasas) vice-president Mohammad Ullah Mamun, his son Rizvi Ahmed Caesar, and Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan, an expat businessman living in the US.
Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Asaduzzaman Nur delivered the judgment, sentencing the five to five-year jail for an attempt to abduct Joy and two-year more for the charge of plotting to kill him.
Both sentences of jail, however, will run concurrently.
According to the case documents, the convicts held meetings on different occasions in Jasas Naya Paltan office in Dhaka, in the United Kingdom and the United States to make plots in this regard.
On August 3, 2015, the police filed the case with Paltan police station and submitted the charge sheet against them on February 19, 2018.
A total of 12 witnesses, including Joy, testified in the case.
