Newsman: Bangladesh court High Court on Sunday acquitted former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s son, Tarique Rahman, and 48 others, overturning their verdicts in a deadly 2004 grenade attack on a political rally. The ruling comes after longtime Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina left the country to India following a mass uprising.
Tarique Rahman serves as the acting chairperson of Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party while in self-exile in London. Tarique Rahman and the 48 others were found guilty in 2018 in the attack targeting a rally held by supporters of Hasina, who led the opposition at the time, leaving two dozen people dead and wounding about 300 others. A court sentenced 19 of them to death while Rahman got life in prison, with Zia’s party accusing the ruling of being politically motivated.
A two-member judge panel on Sunday scrapped the entire 2018 ruling for all 49 men, following an appeal lodged by the defendants. Shishir Monir, a defense lawyer, told reporters the court had declared the trial and verdict “illegal.”
“As a result, all defendants have been acquitted,” he said.
Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus has been the country’s interim leader since Hasina left, but authorities have been struggling to enforce order amid mob justice, chaos and claims of systematic targeting of minority groups, particularly Hindus, which Yunus said are “exaggerated.”
Hasina’s Awami League party blasted the court ruling in a Facebook post on Sunday, saying it wasn’t “Yunus’ Kangaroo court” and that the people of Bangladesh would be the ones trying those responsible for the attacks.
The attorney general’s office can appeal the ruling in the Supreme Court.
