The Trump Administration is likely to deport Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman killer Rashed Chowdhury from the United States.
The Daily Caller, a conservative American news and opinion website based in Washington, on Monday, published a story saying President Trump may deport Chowdhury.
At present, he has been living there as he found asylum in the North American country.
He lived in Chicago, Seattle, Atlanta and in other California cities, according to Bangladeshi sources.
Chowdhury joined the government service in 1969 and got his first diplomatic assignment in 1976 as second secretary in Jeddah.
He also worked in Nairobi, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo and Brasilia as first secretary and counselor. He was dismissed from the service in Jul 1996.
According to his personal file at the foreign ministry, he was asked to report to Dhaka in Jul 1996 but he did not comply.
The Then charge’d affairs of Brasilia, where Rashed Chowdhury was last posted, Iftikharul Karim sent a letter to the foreign ministry saying Rashed flew to San Francisco from Sau Paulo in 1996.
He applied for asylum in the US and later in 2009 international law enforcement informed the US government it was housing a political assassin.
Bangladesh Ambassador to the US Mohammad Ziauddin wrote in US News & World Report in 2014: “Unfortunately, one of the convicted murderers, Rashed Chowdhury, remains at large in the US. That injustice must end. It is time for Rashed Chowdhury to come home.”
The Daily Caller reported that Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali and Ziauddin confirmed that they have received encouraging signs from the Trump administration about extradition of Chowdhury to Bangladesh.
Both of them had meetings with US officials at departments of State and Justice in July and August.
Ali met with Deputy Secretary of State John J Sullivan and other State Department officials on Jul 24 and 25. Ziauddin met with senior Justice Department officials on Aug 1.
The newspaper quoted Ziauddin said: “With the coming of the Trump administration, our hope is at its peak. [Trump] has been very clear about this issue.”
The ambassador regretted that the Obama administration did nothing, despite repeated Bangladesh appeals for Chowdhury’s extradition.
It’s not clear when Chowdhury was granted asylum and under what terms. It’s also unclear why the Obama administration didn’t extradite the convicted murderer.
Meanwhile, this is not the first time Washington had deported a Bangabandhu killer. In 2007 the country deported Mohiuddin AKM Ahmed who lived for nine years in the United States.
The first president of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was brutally killed along with his family members in 1975 when the legacy of transfer of power through coup started in Bangladesh.
Out of the 12 convicted killers, five were arrested and hanged till death on Jan 28, 2010. They are Syed Farooq Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed and Mohiuddin Ahmed.
Khandaker Abdur Rashid, Shariful Huq, SHMB Nur Chowdhury, AM Rashed Chowdhury, Abdul Mazed and Moslehuddin Khan went into hiding when Awami League government came into power in 1996 after a gap of 21 years.
Another convict Abdul Aziz Pasha died in Zimbabwe on Jun 2, 2001.