Govt hopes to bring back Rashed Chy by March

Bangladesh is waiting for a call from the US administration to bring back Rashed Chowdhury, a convicted fugitive killer of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman before the celebration of Bangabandhu's birth centenary in March.
The government planned to discuss the issue with the Joe Biden Administration once again before the celebration. In line with the plan Foreign Minister Dr AK M Momen left for the USA Monday night.
"Obviously, the issue to bring back Rashed Chowdhury, a convicted fugitive killer of Bangabandhu, will be the focus of the meeting. The US got a new administration and we hope there will be no difference over the issue as the Attorney General William Barr started the move in 2019," a senior official of the Foreign Ministry told this correspondent on Monday.
The Foreign Minister's visit to the USA and a series of meetings with senior US officials including US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has sounded optimistic notes in this regard.    "We want to develop a solid relation with the USA," Foreign Minister Dr Momen told the reporters at his office on Monday adding that he would visit the USA and have a series of meetings including one with US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on February 24.
Earlier, the Foreign Minister told the media that deportation of Rashed Chowdhury, a convicted fugitive killer of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman could be a game changer in the Bangladesh-US partnership.
"I'm leaving for the USA tonight (Monday)," said the Foreign Minister. However, there is no specific issue. There will be a broad-based discussion as the US got a new administration, he said.
The US has reopened a 15-year-old political asylum case against a convicted assassin of Bangladesh's Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
US Attorney General William Barr reopened the case of the political asylum of Chowdhury.
Attorney General William Barr (on June 17, 2020) directed the Board of Immigration Appeals to send Chowdhury's case to him for review making it clear that he would reopen the matter decided more than a decade earlier, US media Politico reports, earlier.
William Barr asked all concerned with the Rashed Chowdhury's Board of Immigration Appeals to submit their opinion/arguments by September 29, 2020 for review his (Rashed Chowdhury's) asylum in the USA. And he is set to pass his observation very shortly.
"US Attorney General William Barr's observation on Rashed Chowdhury's asylum in the USA will be announced within a couple of days," The Foreign Ministry sources said.
It would seem that the Trump administration wants to hand over Chowdhury to Bangladesh by reopening the case. Barr's move is the first step in a process that could result in Rashed losing asylum and potentially facing deportation after more than a decade.
Shortly after the coup in 1975, the then Bangladesh government amended the constitution to grant immunity to the coup's participants.
In 2019, Prime Minister Hasina wrote to President Donald Trump, seeking the repatriation of the fugitive, who along with other Army officers was involved in the military coup that led to the assassination of her father in 1975.
Sheikh Hasina has been persuading the US to extradite former Bangladesh Army officer MA Rashed Chowdhury, who is hiding in the United States.
Twenty-three years after the assassination, Chowdhury, a former Bangladesh Army officer, and other fugitive convicts were sentenced to death by the High Court in 1998.
The Supreme Court in 2009 upheld the lower court verdict, confirming the capital punishment of 12 people for killing Bangabandhu and most of his family members.
After Sheikh Mujib's assassination, Chowdhury was rehabilitated by previous governments led by the BNP.
He was posted abroad as a diplomat. He and his family fled to the US in 1996 from Brazil on visitor visas and later got political asylum in America.
When Sheikh Hasina was elected, Chowdhury was the top diplomat at Bangladesh's embassy in Brazil and was soon summoned home. Fearing reprisal, he fled to the United States with his wife and son.