The High Court has granted bail to Shafiur Rahman Farabi, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in the murder case of blogger and writer Avijit Roy.
The bench, comprising Judge Zakir Hossain and Judge KM Rasheduzzaman Raja, passed the order yesterday (30 July).
Senior lawyer SM Shahjahan represented Farabi in court, assisted by lawyer Muhammad Hujjatul Islam Khan.
Speaking on the matter, advocate Muhammad Hujjatul Islam Khan stated, “The High Court accepted Farabi’s appeal against the trial court’s verdict in 2021. Now, he has been granted interim bail. The duration of the bail will be known once the written order is issued.”
In support of the bail plea, it was argued that although four co-accused gave confessional statements in the case, none of them mentioned Farabi’s name. Additionally, no witness—except the investigating officer—linked him to the crime, and Farabi himself did not give any confessional statement. He has been in custody since 3 March 2015.
On 26 February 2015, writer and founder of Mukto Mona blog Avijit Roy, son of late physicist Ajoy Roy, was hacked to death, but his wife Banya escaped with serious injuries after unidentified assailants attacked them with meat cleavers near TSC on the Dhaka University campus as they were returning home from the Amor Ekushey Boi Mela.
Avijit’s late father filed a murder case with Shahbagh Police Station the very next day.
On 16 February 2021, a tribunal in Dhaka sentenced five members of the banned militant outfit Ansar-Al-Islam to death and another to life term imprisonment in a case over the killing of Avijit Roy.
Judge of the Dhaka Anti-Terrorism Tribunal Md Mujibur Rahman handed down the verdict.
The condemned convicts are sacked Major Syed Mohammad Ziaul Haque, a suspected coordinator of the banned militant outfit Ansar-Al-Islam, Mozammel Hossain alias Saimon, Abu Siddiq Sohel alias Sakib alias Sajid alias Shahab, and Akram Hossain alias Abir, Md Arafat Rahman.
The tribunal also fined them Tk50,000 each.
The tribunal also sentenced Shafiur Rahman Farabi to life imprisonment. It also fined him Tk50,000, in default, to suffer two years more imprisonment.
