The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The High Court yesterday acquitted condemned prisoner Ward Commissioner Shahidur Rahman alias Shahid Commissioner and lifer Tonai Molla of the murder of Old Dhaka's BNP leader Advocate Habib Mondol over seven years back.

On August 20, 2000, unidentified assailants in a deadly attack front of his Banagram Road residence in the city gunned down Advocate Habib Mondol, a city BNP leader.

A division bench comprising Justice AKM Fazlur Rahman and Justice Quamrul Islam Siddiqui, following jail appeals against the December 15, 2002 trial court verdict, delivered the judgment exonerating the two convicts.

The High court, however, confirmed the death sentence of dreaded terror Kala Jahangir, now on the run, and life-term imprisonment of 12 other convicts. The lifers are Nurul Huq, Abdul Malek, Chakma Apu, Pichchi Hannan, Kala Sharif, Rahman, Sentu, Akhtar Hossain, Alamgir, Kachi, Biplab and Dakat Shahid.