Former Bangladeshi Envoy Not Surprised By Arrest

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Former Bangladeshi high commissioner Mohamed Khairuzzaman is thankful to the Malaysian authorities for treating him well.PETALING JAYA: Mohamed Khairuzzaman was out for his usual morning jog at his condominium’s grounds on Feb 9 when a man approached him and asked for confirmation of his identity. The former Bangladeshi high commissioner to Malaysia was startled, but he gave the confirmation.
Moments later, several others alighted from two cars and surrounded him. They introduced themselves as immigration officers and asked the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) card holder whether he had a valid visa.
He did not, but the UNHCR card allows him to stay in Malaysia.
Nonetheless, it would be the start of a six-day detention for Khairuzzaman for overstaying, but he told FMT recently the arrest did not surprise him.
He knows the Bangladeshi government is intent on extraditing him because of his alleged involvement in the 1975 “jail killings” of four top leaders of the Awami League, the current ruling government in Bangladesh.
“The high commission started to inquire about me eight months ago through various Bangladeshi nationals living here,” he said.
“But these nationals were calling me to warn me to be careful. ‘Don’t go here, don’t go there.’
“The high commission was asking for my residential address, and Bangladeshi authorities have also gone to my home in Dhaka and my hometown village looking for me.”
Khairuzzaman became the Bangladeshi high commissioner to Malaysia in 2007. He refused to return when the Awami League rose to power in 2009 and ordered him back to face trial over the 1975 assassination of the country’s founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
He spent nearly five years behind bars after he was recalled in 1996 from Manila, where he was serving as his country’s envoy. The government accused him of involvement in the murder of four of Rahman’s aides in a case known as the jail killings.
He was among several diplomats around the world who were told to return to Bangladesh in six days, but he was the only one to do so.
The other diplomats were tried in absentia and sentenced to death, but the courts could not find enough evidence to charge Khairuzzaman. Amnesty International would later describe him as a political prisoner and a prisoner of conscience.
The country’s courts eventually acquitted Khairuzzaman, who then got his job back through an administrative tribunal before rising up the ranks in the foreign ministry and being posted to Myanmar and Malaysia as high commissioner.
In 2010, the Bangladeshi government approached the Supreme Court for a retrial of the 1975 killings, but the country’s attorney-general and chief prosecutor was told that a case cannot be tried twice. The case was withdrawn.
But this year, media reports in Bangladesh have quoted government officials as saying that Khairuzzaman should be brought back to face charges once again for the 1975 killings.
“These claims are all fabricated,” he said. “The government just wants political mileage and to divert attention away from the present crisis it is facing.” He chose not to elaborate.
The former diplomat’s legal team has said his detention in Malaysia was unlawful since he is a political asylum seeker with a UNHCR card and has not committed any immigration violation.
On Feb 15, the Kuala Lumpur High Court granted an interim order against the immigration department’s intention to deport Khairuzzaman to Dhaka.
“I want to thank the Malaysian government and the judiciary system for this,” he said. “I also appreciate the immigration department for treating me well during my arrest.
“I do not think I will get a fair trial if I return.” - FMT

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