Staff Reporter :Police claim that journalist Shafik Rehman named ‘at least three persons’ involved in the alleged plot to abduct and kill Prime Minister’s son Sajeeb Ahmed Wazed Joy.”Shafik Rehman disclosed the names during police remand. The names can not be disclosed for the sake of investigation of the case. We are verifying the information given by Shafik. If we find evidence of their involvement, then they will be arrested,” police said.Additional Police Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Monirul Islam disclosed this in a press briefing at DMP media centre on Sunday afternoon.He said, “All of them were Bangladeshis. They are involved in politics. Some of them live abroad and some in Bangladesh.”Quoting Rehman, Monirul said, “US$ 30,000 had been paid from Bangladesh to certain people in the United States for the documents which was seized by law enforcers from his Eskaton residence. Of the amount, US$ 10,000 was paid under Rehman’s name.”He is being interrogated following legal procedures without any sort of pressure and torture, DMP spokesman claimed.After the first round of custody, police claimed that they found confidential FBI documents after searching the journalist’s house.On April 22, a Dhaka court placed Rehman on a fresh five-day remand in a case filed over an alleged plot to kidnap and kill Joy, also the ICT adviser to the Prime Minister.Police on April 19 claimed that Rehman admitted to having more than one meeting with those in the US allegedly involved in the plot to abduct and kill Joy, who lives in the US. Then Rehman admitted to meeting four persons, including the three convicted by a US court over bribing an FBI special agent to collect confidential information. They are US-Bangladesh citizen Rizve Ahmed Caesar, former FBI special agent Robert Lustyik and his “contact” Johannes Thaler.Earlier, the noted journalist was picked up by plainclothesmen from his house in Dhaka’s Eskaton on April 16.The case was filed by DB Inspector Fazlur Rahman with the Paltan police in August, 2015. The inspector had named BNP’s cultural wing JASAS Vice-President Mohammad Ullah Mamun and a number of unidentified BNP leaders.A US court sentenced JASAS leader Mamun’s son Rizve Ahmed Caesar on March 4, 2015 for his involvement in a bribery scheme to obtain confidential information from a former FBI special agent in New York.According to the case statement, Caesar’s father Mamun and some top leaders of the BNP and its allies met in the UK, the US and various places of Bangladesh before September 2012 and conspired to abduct and kill the PM’s son.In March last year, Caesar was convicted by a US court for bribing an FBI special agent to collect information regarding a Bangladeshi political figure.The US Justice Department did not name the figure, but it is believed to be Joy.In a Facebook post on March 9 last year, Joy accused BNP leaders of conspiring to abduct and kill him.
