By David Bergman on 25/04/2016 / The Wire
Given that Sajeeb Wazed has already asserted that Shafik Rehman was directly involved in the plot to kidnap and kill him, it is difficult to see how the police can walk back from the path set out for it.
Dhaka: Two senior journalists, with strong links
to the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), were last week arrested
on charges of conspiring to kill Sajeeb Wazed, the son of Bangladesh’s Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The allegations against Shafik Rehman and Mahmudur Rahman
are based on evidence collected by the FBI when it investigated a scheme in the
US involving a Bangladeshi-American, Rizve Ahmed, who purchased confidential
information about Wazed from a corrupt law enforcement agent.
As The Wire had earlier revealed, whilst
sentencing Ahmed and two others for bribery offences, the US States Federal
District Court judge, ruled in March 2015 that the FBI’s evidence was not
sufficient to show that Ahmed had planned to use the illegally obtained
confidential information to physically harm Wazed.
Whilst this US court ruling would appear to significantly
dent the credibility of Bangladesh’s case against the two journalists – who
were not even alleged to be part of the bribery scheme in the first place – the
authorities in Dhaka have brushed it to one side.
The day after the publication of The Wire’s
article, the magistrate court in Dhaka granted a police application seeking a
further five-day period in which to question Rehman in custody.
The US court order may be an embarrassment, but it will not
curb the enthusiasm of the Bangladeshi authorities in pursuing this case.
An alleged plot to kidnap and kill the son of the prime
minister, involving two major pro-opposition journalists, which could reach
into the heart of the BNP itself, is too good to be true for a government that
is seeking every opportunity it can use to weaken the opposition party.
But let us give the Bangladesh authorities their due – and
put aside the US Federal court ruling and see how the evidence uncovered by the
FBI supports the government’s contention that two Bangladeshi journalists were
involved in a plot to kidnap and kill Wazed.
The evidence of a plan to injure Wazed
Court documents point to the US Department of Justice having
three pieces of evidence in support of the claim made in court that Ahmed, who
pleaded guilty to bribery offences, ‘sought to cause Individual 1, who was
living in Virginia with his wife and child, to be kidnapped and physically
harmed.’
First, the Department of Justice’s sentencing submission
relating to Ahmed states: “In a voluntary interview with investigating agents,
Ahmed admitted that he provided the private investigator $4,000, and that he
requested the private investigator’s help regarding a plan to “scare,”
“kidnap,” and “hurt” Individual 1.”
This private investigator, referred to as Steve, was not one
of the three men involved in the bribery scheme, but a separate person who
Ahmed contacted around January 2012 to obtain information about Wazed.
Secondly, according to Judge Vincent L. Briccetti’s
summarising of the evidence, the private investigator had confirmed to the FBI
that Ahmed had told him that he ‘wanted his help regarding a plan to scare and
hurt Individual 1’
The third piece of evidence concerns a text message from the
corrupt FBI agent, Robert Lustyik to his friend Johannes Thaler, both of whom
were convicted along with Ahmed, which was sent when the two men thought Ahmed
was reneging on their financial deal. The text stated: ‘Tell [Ahmed], I’ve got
[Individual 1’s] number and I’m pissed. . . I will put a wire on n get them to
admit they want [a Bangladeshi political figure] offed n we sell it to
[Individual 1].’ The assumption, here, is that ‘offed’ means killed.
The court’s views about the evidence
In relation to his admission in the interview, the judge
stated that Ahmed made conflicting statements:
‘Ahmed made conflicting statements about what he intended to
do with respect to Individual 1 when he was interviewed following his arrest a
year and a half or so after the bribery scheme in this case had petered out …
As I said, the statements he made about it were conflicting. At first he said
he did, then he said he didn’t. I don’t know which is true.’
And as to the statement made by the private investigator,
the judge stated that whilst Ahmed did mention an intention to scare and hurt
Wazed, it was not discussed any further. The judge said:
‘And [Ahmed] was asked of course about involvement in this
case but he was also asked about his involvement with a private investigator by
the name of Steve that he hired after the Lustyik/Thaler conspiracy had petered
out, and in the context of being asked about his relationship with Steve,
according to the memo of interview, Ahmed told Steve that he wanted his help in
obtaining private security for BNP officials in Bangladesh, .. and Ahmed also
allegedly told Steve that he wanted his help regarding a plan to scare and hurt
Individual 1. And it also says in the report that Ahmed initially told the
investigators that he was just kidding about such a plan. But when he was
questioned further … Ahmed acknowledged that his intent was genuine when he
asked Steve for help to hurt and kidnap but not kill Individual Number 1. Steve
said that was possible but they didn’t discuss it any further.’
About the third piece of evidence, the judge seems not to
have concluded that ‘offed’ meant ‘kill’, and said the following:
‘Everything that I’ve been presented in this case, the text
messages and the other things that I’ve seen — and I acknowledge that I’m
definitely not as familiar with the case as the lawyers are, but all I can do
is rely on what I’ve been provided with — based on what I’ve been provided
with, this case is all about furthering Ahmed’s political aims, getting
confidential information to expose what Ahmed apparently thought was corrupt
behavior by the ruling party and otherwise embarrass Individual Number 1. And
that’s all terrible behavior and as I said relevant to sentencing. But there’s
no talk in these exchanges about doing physical harm to Individual. So I cannot
find that that objective was part of the offense of conviction here.’
In summary about the three pieces of evidence, the judge
stated: ‘I will also say for the record that the government’s contention that
Ahmed in fact sought to kidnap and physically harm an individual is a stretch.
I just don’t feel there’s enough evidence that’s been presented to me for me to
make that finding. … As I said earlier, Ahmed’s overall intentions with
respect to Individual 1 are to say the least unkind and highly relevant to
sentencing in this case. But I don’t believe that there’s sufficient evidence
that he really did seek to kidnap and physically harm Individual 1.’
So, the US court, rightly or wrongly, ruled that these three
pieces of evidence were not sufficient to allow him to conclude that Ahmed
sought to use the illegally obtained information to physically harm Wazed. The
US government did not appeal the judge’s decision on this matter.
The significance of the evidence
However, for the purposes of this article, let us now bin
the judge’s comments and look at the evidence itself. How does this help the
government in its case against the two journalists in Bangladesh?
To consider this question, one must look at some other
aspects of the FBI investigation into Ahmed’s conduct.
First, the FBI found that Ahmed had provided the illegally
obtained FBI information to three men, including a ‘Bangladesh journalist’.
Also one of the court documents states that it was in fact this journalist who
had paid ‘$30,000’ for the information.
Secondly, Ahmed, having already paid $1000 to obtain
some confidential FBI information, organised a meeting at this home at the end
of January 2012 which, according to one court document, was attended by
Lustyik, Thaler, Ahmed, Ahmed’s father – who is the vice-president of the
cultural wing of the opposition BNP – and ‘two Bangladeshi men’.
Let’s assume for the purposes of this exercise that Rehman
was this ‘Bangladesh journalist’. This would mean that he received illegally
acquired FBI information from Ahmed – and may even have paid for it.
As for the meeting, according to evidence it was ‘to discuss
exchanging additional confidential law enforcement information, to which
Special Agent Lustyik had access to by virtue of his position with the FBI, for
additional cash payments.’
Therefore, if, lets say the two arrested journalists were
the two ‘Bangladeshis’ present at the meeting – and this is by no means
confirmed – then they may well have been complicit in the offence of bribing an
FBI agent, an offence that could be prosecuted in the US, but not in
Bangladesh. (It should be noted that, according to his family Rehman has
visited the United States in 2014 and 2015 and was not apprehended by the
authorities)
But the Bangladesh government’s claim is not about the
illegal acquisition of FBI documents – but about a conspiracy to kill Wazed.
Of course, if we assume that the evidence set out above is
correct and Rizvi sought to harm Wazed, then perhaps at this meeting such a
plot was discussed – or perhaps the plot to harm Wazed was discussed at some
other meeting between Ahmed and the two journalists.
However, such an assertion would be total speculation. There
is no known evidence to support this contention.
This brings us to the basic weakness of Bangladesh’s
allegation. Although there is some evidence that Ahmed may have thought about
using the FBI information to harm Wazed – there is no evidence that on
receiving the information, Ahmed, or anyone connected to Ahmed, actually made
an attempt to harm the prime minister’s son.
The relationship between Ahmed and the FBI agent ended in
February 2012.
Ahmed, however, was not arrested until 2 August 2013 – 18
months later – and in that period, there is no evidence of any plotting or
attempting to kidnap Wazed.
Following Ahmed’s arrest, his house was searched by the FBI.
In the Department of Justice’s sentencing submission, it is
stated that ‘a search of Ahmed’s residence and electronic devices revealed that
he was in possession of false FBI credentials and false business cards
representing that Ahmed was an FBI agent, FBI paraphernalia, and false FBI
documents that purported to contain classified information.’ Whilst it is
possible that false FBI credentials could have been used as part of a
kidnapping plan, the Department of Justice does not suggest that they were
intended to be used in that way. And there is no evidence linking this
paraphernalia to either of the two journalists.
Indeed at the Federal court, the sentencing judge stated:
‘Finally, it’s also clear, fortunately, that Individual 1
was in fact never physically harmed nor was there ever an attempt to harm him.’
Of course, most significantly, the Department of Justice
never indicted Ahmed for seeking or planning or attempting to harm Wazed –
something it could have only done if it had enough evidence that between
February 2012 and the time of his arrest a year and a half later, Ahmed had
planned to do so.
Wazed’s recent claim that Ahmed pleaded guilty to
crimes of bribery in order to avoid ‘facing a very long prison sentence for
attempted murder,’ is not supported by the case documents. Ahmed was indicted
in August 2014 for five bribery offences, his plea bargain involved him
pleading guilty to two of offences, escaping prosecution for the other three.
So whilst there is some evidence that points to Ahmed
thinking of causing physically harm to Wajed, it is – using the language of the
Federal judge – a very big ‘stretch’ to then use this evidence to argue,
as Wazed and the Bangladesh police do, that the two journalists were conspiring
to kill him.
New evidence?
However, the evidence set out above may not be the end of
the story.
It may be that there is other evidence that the FBI did not
make public in the court documents which could fill the evidential chasm in the
government’s case.
The US embassy in Dhaka has in the last few days issued a
statement saying, ‘The United States Department of Justice responded to the
Government of Bangladesh’s request for legal assistance related to this case.
As a general matter, when the U.S. government shares law enforcement
information as part of a request for legal assistance, we do not comment on
it.’
So what information could the Department of Justice be
sharing?
At the very least, one would expect it to provide the names
of the three men who received information from Ahmed, along with the names of
Ahmed’s other two associates, who met with the corrupt FBI agent.
It is also possible that there was additional information
that the FBI may have collected during the investigation into the bribery case
which the Department of Justice did not mention in its sentencing submission
and which did not come up during the court hearing. We simply don’t know.
For the Bangladeshi authorities, however, this is less a
question of evidence and more one of politics.
Of course, the authorities would love it if the US
Department of Justice could provide them with additional evidence of a plot.
They would much rather prosecute a case with strong rather than weak evidence.
But if the Department of Justice doesn’t provide them the requisite evidence,
the authorities will not worry them much – since damaging and weakening the
opposition party by any means is a key goal.
Even without new evidence, the criminal case will go on, as
will the assertion of a plot to kill Wazed.
Indeed, Wazed has already asserted, without ambiguity, that
Rehman had ‘direct involvement in the plot to kidnap and kill’ him. It is
difficult to see how the Bangladeshi police can walk back from the path Wazed
has set out for it.
In Bangladesh, criminal justice is very often just politics
by other means.
-
- David Bergman is an investigative
journalist based in Bangladesh. He also runs the Bangladesh
Politico and Bangladesh War Crimes blogs.
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