Plot to kill Joy: Shafik Rehman’s punishment suspended for a year

The home ministry has suspended the punishment of senior journalist Shafik Rehman and businessman Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan for one-year in a case filed over the plotting to abduct and kill Sajeeb Wazed Joy.
The verdict was suspended subject to surrender and appeal to the Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court-2.
The ministry’s Security Service Division issued a notification in this regard on September 22 following an opinion from the law ministry after Shafik Rehman and Mizanur Rahman appealed against the punishment, the notification reads.
The case was filed on August 3, 2015, by the Detective Branch (DB) of police with Paltan Police Station. The DB pressed charges against the five accused on February 20, 2018.
Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Muhammad Asaduzzaman Nur convicted and sentenced five people, including Shafik Rehman, to seven years’ imprisonment on August 17, last year for plotting to abduct and kill Sajeeb Wazed Joy, former ICT affairs adviser to the then prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
The other convicts are Mahmudur Rahman, former acting editor of now defunct daily Amar Desh; Mohammad Ullah Mamun, vice-president of Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangskritik Sangstha (Jasas); and his son Rizvi Ahmed Caesar; and Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan, alias Milton Bhuiyan.
The court delivered the verdict in their absence.
Earlier in the day, Mahmudur Rahman was sent to jail after his surrender before the court of Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Md Mahbubul Haque seeking bail in the case.