Staff Reporter :
Former lawmaker Golam Faruque Ovi was acquitted on Tuesday in the 22-year-old case of advertising model Syeda Tania Mahbub Tinni’s murder.
Dhaka’s Second Additional District and Sessions Judge Mst Shahinur Akhter delivered the verdict, with no members of Tinni’s family present in court.
State-appointed lawyer Shah Ilyas Ratan, who represents Ovi, expressed satisfaction with the verdict, but Additional Public Prosecutor Syed Md Abu Zafar Rizbi said the state plans to appeal after reviewing the decision.
Earlier on Nov 10, 2002, Tinni was found dead under the Bangladesh-China Friendship Bridge-1 on the Buriganga River. Keraniganj police recovered the body and lodged an unnatural case. Six years later, on November 8, 2008, police pressed charges in court against Ovi.
According to the charge sheet, Ovi incited Tinni to divorce her husband, assuring that he would marry her. But after the divorce, he refused to marry her.
Enraged, Tinni threatened to reveal their relationship, and Ovi killed her on the evening of Nov 10, 2002, and left her body under the bridge, it added.
Ovi, a former lawmaker from Barishal-2, has reportedly been living in Canada since 2008, fearing arrest and torture in a murder case in which he claims he was framed.
