Court Issues Death Warrant for Abdul Majed

A Dhaka court has issued the death warrant for dismissed army captain Abdul Majed, one of the six absconding death-row convicts in the Bangabandhu killing case, paving the way for his execution.

District and Sessions Judge Md Helal Chowdhury issued the death warrant on Wednesday.

Earlier in the morning, Dhaka District Public Prosecutor Khandakar Abdul Mannan filed an application with the court seeking issuance of the death warrant for Majed, who was arrested on Tuesday.

Although all the courts across the country have been declared closed till April 14 due to the outbreak of coronavirus, District and Sessions Judge Md Helal Chowdhury opened his court today only to hear the petition as per the instruction of the Supreme Court.

Earlier on Tuesday, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of Dhaka AM Zulfikar Hayat sent Abdul Majed to Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj when Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit under Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) produced him before the court amid tight security.

The Supreme Court on November 19, 2009, upheld the death sentences of Abdul Majed and 11 other self-confessed killers of Bangabandhu. Of them, five were executed on January 27, 2010.

They were Syed Farooq Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed, and Mohiuddin Ahmed. Meanwhile, another killer, Aziz Pasha, died in Zimbabwe in 2001.

The trial process began in 1996 when an indemnity law was scrapped as it was protecting the assassins.

Six other convicts including Abdul Majed remained at large. After the arrest of Majed, five more killers still remain fugitives from the law  — Khandaker Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haque Dalim, Noor Chowdhury, Rashed Chowdhury and Risaldar Moslehuddin Khan.

To locate and bring them back, a taskforce comprising of ministers and high officials of the foreign, law, and home ministries were formed in 2010. Rashed was traced in the US and Noor in Canada.

Majed is from Batamara village at Burhanuddin Upazila of Bhola district. His properties in his village have already been confiscated by the district administration.

People of Burhanuddin expressed their satisfaction with his arrest on social media as they cannot come out of their homes due to coronavirus.