Audio clip 'captures Bangladeshi police killing drugs suspect'

Death of Akramul Haque raises fresh fears over extrajudicial killings in drugs crackdown

Michael Safi and Shaikh Azizur Rahman/ Wed, June 6, 2018

A recorded phone conversation that appears to capture Bangladeshi police killing a local politician has raised fresh concerns over a Philippines-style drugs crackdown, after 130 people were shot dead in three weeks.

Bangladesh’s elite Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) said last week it had killed Akramul Haque in a gunfight on 27 May. It accused Haque, 46, of being a drug dealer and claimed to have found two guns and thousands of methamphetamine pills on his body.

Four days later, at the Cox’s Bazar press club in southern Bangladesh, his wife, Ayesha, played a series of phone conversations she had recorded with her husband that night, which she claims paint a different picture.

In the first two, Haque, a municipal councillor with the ruling Awami League party, tells his daughter he has been asked to visit the office of a local government official. He speaks in a hushed tone in the third call as he tells his daughter he is travelling to another location for “urgent work”.

“I am in a vehicle, I cannot speak more now,” he says on the recording, which the Guardian has heard but cannot verify.

Ayesha makes the final call, which connects, but only the muffled voices of several men can be heard. A man she identifies as Akram can be heard saying, “I am not involved”. Seconds later, a gunshot is heard, then a man groaning, then another shot. Ayesha and her daughters start wailing on the other end of the line.

As the family continue shouting for Akram to answer, other voices can be made out over the noise of a blazing siren. “Take out the bullets,” one says. An order is given to scatter empty cartridges at the scene. “Have his hands been untied?” another voice asks.

The content of the tapes, and Ayesha’s accusations that her husband’s death was a “planned murder”, were reported on the front page of the national Daily Star newspaper and have sparked debate in Bangladesh over the country’s recently launched narcotics crackdown.

Bangladeshi police have shot dead at least 131 suspected drug dealers in the past three weeks according to local media estimates, in response to what authorities say is a thriving trade in illegal drugs, particularly methamphetamine pills known as yaba.

Police have characterised the killings as nighttime shootouts and claimed weapons and drugs were recovered from most of the bodies. More than 10,000 people have been arrested as part of the campaign.

But human rights activists and several families of those killed have questioned the police version of events, arguing their relatives never touched drugs or were killed as part of a campaign of harassment against political activists in the lead up to national elections this year.

The son-in-law of one victim, Shukur Ali, last week told the Guardian that plainclothes officers had arrested the man the same evening he was allegedly killed in a gunfight with police.

AKM Wahiduzzaman, a leader in the opposition Bangladesh National party, said about 15 of those killed so far had been members of his group.

The Daily Star’s website, which published clips of the phone recordings, was blocked for more than 18 hours by the Bangladesh telecommunications regulator at the weekend.

The government has defended the drugs crackdown but ordered a judicial inquiry after the release of the audio clips and conceded sometimes “mistakes” might be made.

“If anyone or some persons are found to have played a role with an ill motive in this case, they will face the court,” the Bangladesh home minister, Asaduzzaman Khan.

“People are happy with our anti-drug operations,” he added. “When the ordinary citizens are supporting this campaign we have no plan to bring it to a halt.”

Obaidul Quader, the road transport and bridges minister, said “one or two mistakes” might occur during such a sweeping police operation.

“We are not sure as yet if any innocent person has been killed during this [Akramul Haque] operation,” he said on Tuesday. “Only after investigation we can be sure if the charge that some innocent people have been killed is true.”

The chairman of the country’s National Human Rights Commission said he had heard the tapes and was deeply concerned. “People should not be deprived of their rights that are guaranteed by our constitution and law,” Kazi Reazul Hoque said.

“The law enforcers have to work within the law to stop recurrence of such incidents. All incidents should be investigated properly.”

The European Union mission in Dhaka said in a statement on Tuesday: “We expect the authorities to ensure that all incidents involving the deaths of alleged criminal suspects are investigated fully in accordance with due processes.”

Last week the US ambassador to Dhaka, Marcia Bernicat, said she had also discussed the bloodshed in a meeting with the Bangladeshi home minister.

“Everyone in a democracy has a right to due process,” she told reporters after the meeting. “If there is a violent confrontation people may not survive that, but the goal should be zero tolerance, the goal should be to try and bring everyone to justice.”

Activist groups including Human Rights Watch have likened the campaign to the narcotics crackdown conducted by President Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, in which hundreds of alleged drug dealers have died at the hands of police in what critics say are extrajudicial killing.

Rab could not be reached for comment.

• Courtesy — theguardian.com
• Link — Audio clip 'captures Bangladeshi police killing drugs suspect'