UNB, Dhaka :Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali on Monday laid emphasis on strengthening victim and witness protection regime through identifying and addressing the gaps to ensure the full protection of witnesses to terrorism.”We must leverage that synergy to further strengthen our victim and witness protection regime,” he said adding that recent experience with combating financing of terrorism has shown what can be achieved through effective coordination among all agencies concerned.The Foreign Minister was speaking at the inaugural session of the two-day national workshop titled ‘Strengthening National Legal Frameworks for the Protection and Support of Victims and Witnesses of Terrorism’ held at Cirdap International Conference Centre in the city.Home Secretary Dr M Mozammel Haque, Law Secretary M Shahidul Haque and US Ambassador Dan W Mozena, among others, spoke on the occasion.Mahmood Ali cited the case of late Mostafa Howladar who was hacked to death while asleep at his home at a village in Pirojpur in December last year.”It was a clear case of reprisal against Howladar for having testified against the Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee. In less than two years of giving his testimony, Howladar had to succumb to the wrath of those who would like to see the ICT-BD trials disrupted and halted,” he said.The Foreign Minister said, Howladar became the second generation victim of the murderous zeal of the purveyors of the crimes against humanity and genocide during our War of Liberation in 1971.”We couldn’t, as a society and a State, guarantee the protection that was due to Howladar despite the palpable threat against his life and many others like him,” he said.
