DHAKA, Bangladesh’s special court on Thursday sentenced two former police officers to death for the 2024 killing of a college student, which fueled street protests that eventually toppled the then-Awami League government led by Sheikh Hasina.
On July 16, 2024, the International Crime Tribunal sentenced two former Assistant Sub-Inspector of Police Amir Hossain and Constable Sujan Chandra Roy Abu for crimes against humanity in the killing of Abu Saeed on the campus of state-run Rangoul University.
The court also sentenced three other former police officers to life imprisonment and sentenced 25 others, including the university’s vice-chancellor, to different prison terms.
Video and photos taken in the hours before his death show Said, 23, spreading his arms in a gesture of defiance to police.
“They will be hanged until death,” declared ICT-BD chairman Justice Nazrul Islam Chowdhury.
The criminals include Rangpur’s former police chief, police officers, university teachers, officials and doctors, as well as student activists belonging to the now-defunct Awami League student wing.
Two former police officers who were sentenced to death are currently in prison, while three police officers who were sentenced to life imprisonment are at large like most other criminals. Only six criminals were tried in person.
Defense lawyer Azizur Rahman claimed “no traces of bullets” were found on Saeed’s body or the clothes he was wearing when he died.
Chief prosecutor Aminul Islam told reporters: “Abu Said sacrificed his life to free the country from dictatorship and 30 people were convicted.”
However, he said the court heard witness statements and completed trial proceedings before he was appointed as ICT-BD chief prosecutor.
Under the ICT Act, which was originally enacted to try hardcore collaborators of the Pakistan Army during the 1971 Liberation War, convicts who are tried in person have an opportunity to challenge their verdicts before the Supreme Court.
On November 17 last year, the ICT-BD sentenced Hasina to death, finding that she incited, abetted and ordered the killing of 1,400 people during the violent student-led street protests known as the July Uprising, which overthrew Hasina’s government on August 5, 2024.
Hasina fled to India after her government was overthrown and has been accused of “crimes against humanity” to tame protesters.
This article was generated from automated news agency feeds without modifications to the text.
