Staff Reporter :
US court records contradict the Bangladesh government’s claims that the conviction a year ago of three men in New York for illegally obtaining confidential FBI records involved a plot to kill the son of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed.
The online news portal ‘The Wire’ said on Wednesday as reported by David Bergman based in Dhaka.
Indeed, the US district court judge who tried the case specifically dismissed prosecutors’ claims that the men planned to ‘physically harm’ Sajeeb Wazed Joy.
The US court’s findings made during the sentencing in March 2015 of the three men who pleaded guilty to bribery offences, conflict directly with the basis of the criminal case that led to the arrest in Dhaka last Saturday of the prominent journalist Shafik Rehman for conspiring in the so-called plot to ‘kidnap and kill’ Wazed.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on April 16 that police arrested Shafik Rehman,an adviser to BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia over a case filed previously over a plot to abduct and kill Sajeeb Wazed Joy.
Police also showed Amar Desh acting editor Mahmudur Rahman arrested in the case who is in jail since 2013. Sheikh Hasina said the names of these people came from US court.
The US court’s findings, also contradicts Wazed’s widely publicised claims that the three men convicted by the US court, were jailed “for this plot” to kill him, and that the “evidence” behind the arrest of Rehman “comes directly from this [US] case.” The bribery case in the US first became public in Bangladesh when Wazed published a Facebook post on March 9, 2013 stating that he had provided a victim statement before the New York Court that sentenced Rizve Ahmed (Caesar), in the case.
Ahmed had pleaded guilty to two offences relating to bribing an FBI agent to obtain confidential financial and other records relating to the Bangladeshi prime minister’s son.
Wazed, without mentioning the nature of offences before the US court, stated that, Ahmed was promised hefty financial benefit by BNP which wanted to kidnap me and kill him in the US. Wazed’s disclosure led the police in May 2015 filing a General Diary, referring to the criminal conviction of the three men in the US and that BNP has planned to kill him.
Three months later, police filed a case with the court claiming that the father of Ahmed, along with other BNP leaders in Bangladesh and abroad had conspired to “kidnap and kill Joy (Wazed) in America.” Immediately after Shafik Rehman’s arrested on Saturday, Wazed also clamed in his Facebook post that the three men were jailed by US court for plotting to kill him. And evidence points to Shafik Rehman’s involvement. The evidence against Shaafik Rahman comes directly from this case. Police later demanded Shafiq Rahman remand in the court saying the US court had jailed Ahmed for his involvement in a plot to kill the prime minister’s son and he had also conspired with him. However publicly available US court documents tell a rather different story to the one narrated by Wazed and by the police. The bribery scheme, which involved three men – Ahmed who gave the money, and FBI special agent Robert Lustyik and their mutual friend Johannes Thaler who took the money – started in September 2011.
Ahmed was described by prosecutors as an activist of BNP who sought to ‘assist his political allies and harm his political opponents’ In December, in exchange for $1000, Thaler gave Ahmed a number of confidential documents about Wazed, which Lustyik had illegally obtained from FBI databases.
These included “an internal memorandum (the ‘FBI Memo’) that referred to Individual 1 and a sum of $300 million and a confidential report, known as a Suspicious Activity Report (the ‘SAR’) that also referred to Individual 1.” Individual 1 refers to Wazed. He was working with multiple associates who also sought the documents and information and were willing to pay for them.” Ahmed was particularly interested in getting more information about the ‘$300 million’.
On January 29, 2012, the three men along with ‘three associates of Ahmed’s’ met at Ahmed’s residence to discuss additional confidential law enforcement information.
After the three men were arrested and pleaded guilty to the commission of bribery offences none of them were charged with any offence concerned with seeking to physically harm Wazed or anyone else.
“The [US] government’s contention that [Rizve] Ahmed in fact sought to kidnap and physically harm an individual is a stretch,” Judge Vincent L. Briccetti said “I just don’t feel there’s enough evidence,” the judge said
He added that in talks between the three men ‘there’s no talk … about doing physical harm to Individual 1. The judge also specifically ruled that Wazed was not a ‘victim’ in the case.
Judge Bricetti concluded that Ahmed’s sole reason for bribing the FBI agent was to embarrass Wazed for political gain exposing corrupt behavior by the ruling party and otherwise embarrass [Sajeeb Wazed]. Wazed was present in court when the judge made this ruling.
In its sentencing the court said that Ahmed had distributed the confidential information to three men, for which he earned $30,000. One of the men was ‘a Bangladeshi journalist’.
