Another hearing on Mohiuddin likely in US court Tuesday
Sunday, 3 June 2007
San Francisco Circuit Court was learnt to have considered a rehearing of the asylum case of Bangabandhu's condemned killer AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed next Tuesday, reports UNB.
Earlier in mid-March, the 9th Circuit Court had declared him fugitive and rejected his petition for allowing him to stay in the United States. Last week, the court also refused to hear his case once more.
A source in the foreign ministry said Saturday evening that Mohiuddin's lawyer convinced the court to get his application reheard. Accordingly, the hearing will take place Tuesday.
Sources in Dhaka and Washington hinted that the deportation "might be delayed until all legal options are exhausted". They said if his lawyers failed to get any redress in the circuit court, they might move to the US Supreme Court.
The San Francisco court had ruled Mohiuddin "assisted or participated" in the persecution of others for political reasons and said the August 75 coup that assassinated the country's founding-father and first President Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most members of his family was an act of terrorism.
After the court verdict, the US authorities arrested and kept him detained at an immigration detention centre near Long Beach, California, since mid-March.
The first attempt to deport him after the San Francisco court's judgment was stayed after the intervention of California Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.