Mohiuddin on way to Dhaka
Monday, 18 June 2007
Bangabandhu murder case convict AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed is on his way to Dhaka, a senior Foreign Ministry official said Sunday afternoon, report agencies.
He is learnt to have boarded a plane from Los Angeles and is likely to be flown in Dhaka today (Monday) as Washington denied him anymore stay in the United States.
"The process of bringing him back has begun," Foreign Adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury told reporters.
The adviser did not give details, but one of his senior aides told the news agency at 3.40pm, "He is on the plane now."
The adviser said the Foreign Office had received a call at 2:40pm (Bangladesh time) from the Consul General in Los Angeles that the deportation of Mohiuddin started.
The adviser refused to give details of the convict's flight to Dhaka apparently for security reasons, but gave enough indication that the former military officer was on his way to jail in Bangladesh.
Two US cops who Thursday collected visa from Bangladesh mission are escorting the condemned convict.
Under US law, deportees are normally escorted directly to their country of origin.
The US Homeland Security initiated the deportation process Thursday evening after Mohiuddin lost his appeal to the US Federal Court Thursday not to deport him to Bangladesh, acting foreign secretary Towhid Hossain was quoted as saying by BBC Radio Friday.
The US escorts will hand him over to the police at the Zia International Airport and return by the same airplane.
Some Foreign Ministry officials preferring anonymity had said Mohiuddin would be escorted straight to jail from airport.
Earlier, the family of the former army officer, convicted of killing country's founding father and first President, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and most members of his family, made emotional appeals for asylum in Canada after the US decided to deport him.
Mohiuddin has lost his last appeal to stay on in the US, where he entered on a tourist visa in 1996 and stayed there illegally.
Mohiuddin has been declared a fugitive after he was tried in absentia and convicted in 1998 for his role in the assassination on August 15, 1975.
Mohiuddin is one of the many former soldiers, dubbed 'killer majors', who was at large after being given safe passage. Some of them were given diplomatic assignments and now live outside Bangladesh.
He is learnt to have boarded a plane from Los Angeles and is likely to be flown in Dhaka today (Monday) as Washington denied him anymore stay in the United States.
"The process of bringing him back has begun," Foreign Adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury told reporters.
The adviser did not give details, but one of his senior aides told the news agency at 3.40pm, "He is on the plane now."
The adviser said the Foreign Office had received a call at 2:40pm (Bangladesh time) from the Consul General in Los Angeles that the deportation of Mohiuddin started.
The adviser refused to give details of the convict's flight to Dhaka apparently for security reasons, but gave enough indication that the former military officer was on his way to jail in Bangladesh.
Two US cops who Thursday collected visa from Bangladesh mission are escorting the condemned convict.
Under US law, deportees are normally escorted directly to their country of origin.
The US Homeland Security initiated the deportation process Thursday evening after Mohiuddin lost his appeal to the US Federal Court Thursday not to deport him to Bangladesh, acting foreign secretary Towhid Hossain was quoted as saying by BBC Radio Friday.
The US escorts will hand him over to the police at the Zia International Airport and return by the same airplane.
Some Foreign Ministry officials preferring anonymity had said Mohiuddin would be escorted straight to jail from airport.
Earlier, the family of the former army officer, convicted of killing country's founding father and first President, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and most members of his family, made emotional appeals for asylum in Canada after the US decided to deport him.
Mohiuddin has lost his last appeal to stay on in the US, where he entered on a tourist visa in 1996 and stayed there illegally.
Mohiuddin has been declared a fugitive after he was tried in absentia and convicted in 1998 for his role in the assassination on August 15, 1975.
Mohiuddin is one of the many former soldiers, dubbed 'killer majors', who was at large after being given safe passage. Some of them were given diplomatic assignments and now live outside Bangladesh.