The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Dhaka

The United States (US) has assured Bangladesh of considering extradition of fugitive killers of the 1975 carnage as a campaign for bringing them to justice has been launched.

"The US authorities positively responded as we requested them to identify and return the killers hiding in different parts of the US, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Hasan Mahmud yesterday told newsmen on his return home after a 10-day official tour to the US and Canada.

He said the exact whereabouts of the absconding killers of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman could not be ascertained yet, but at least five of them are reportedly hiding in different parts of North America.

The state minister said the US assurance came as he met US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, US Congressman Jim MacDermort and Chairman of US National Security Council Donald Camp.

Dr Mahmud's comments came two weeks after State Minister for Home Tanjim Ahmed Sohel Taj said, "Bangladesh is to launch a campaign for extradition of fugitive leaders of the August 15, 1975, carnage."

"The government will also sign prisoner exchange deals with the countries that do not have such agreements with Bangladesh to bring back the convict killers," he told newsmen at a briefing.

Bangabandhu was assassinated along with most of his family members on the August 15, 1975, coup, which also toppled the country's post independence Awami League government.

A Dhaka court in 1998 handed down death sentences to 15 former army officers while seven of the convicts were tried in absentia as they went into hiding during the 1996 general elections that brought Awami League to power. The party was in a political wilderness for 21 years since 1975.

The previous Awami League government cleared ways for the delayed trial of the killers scrapping a notorious indemnity law enacted by the post 1975 regime to protect them from justice.

Two of the convict coup plotters, however, were brought back from Thailand and the US in the past 10 years. The Bangabandhu murder trial is now pending with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court for a final hearing after the High Court upheld the death sentences awarded to the 12 former army officers.

One of the convicts, sacked Lt Col Mohiuddin Ahmed, was brought back home in June last year from the US after a federal court there rejected his appeal to stay back as he sought to take refuge there though the two countries do not have any extradition treaty.

Thailand returned another convict dismissed Major Bazlul Huda after Dhaka and Bangkok signed an extradition treaty to bring him back in 1998.

The foreign office in Dhaka earlier confirmed the natural death of one of the fugitives sacked Lt Col Aziz Pasha in Zimbabwe but said the government was not aware of the whereabouts other absconders believed to be hiding in other countries with Interpol issuing "red alert" seeking to track them.

Police said they resumed a drive to track down the rest of the convicts with the Interpol assistance.

Another report said the Interpol 'red notices' for the convict army officers facing death penalty for the 1975 assassinations lost their validity last year while those were issued at the request of Bangladesh Police.

According to earlier reports they had taken refuge in India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Zimbabwe, Libya and the US or were moving from country to country.

Bangladesh currently has an extradition treaty with Thailand alone.