The government has been continuing its efforts to bring back Chowdhury Mueen Uddin and Ashrafuzzaman Khan, who are living in the United Kingdom and United States of America, evading death sentence awarded to them for killing the country’s intellectuals during the War of Liberation in 1971, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday.
“We are maintaining constant communication with these two countries and working as part of the efforts to bring them back,” MoFA Spokesperson Seheli Sabrin said at a weekly media briefing.
Mueen and Ashraf were among the country's most wanted criminals after the Liberation War in 1971 for killing intellectuals as part of Al-Badr's plan to eliminate the bright minds just before the country's independence.
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Mueen and Ashraf were sentenced to death after Special War Crimes Tribunal found them guilty of abducting and murdering 18 people including nine university teachers, six journalists and three doctors in December 1971.
Bangladesh observes Martyred Intellectuals Day on December 14 to remember and honour the intellectuals brutally killed by the Pakistani occupation forces and their local collaborators in 1971. They were slain just before the country achieved victory in the nine-month War of Liberation.
Responding to a question, the MoFA spokesperson said around 16 Japanese observers have shown their interest to the Election Commission to observe the next national election.
Apart from that, she said, observers from India, Palestine, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and Arab League will observe the election.
Fugitive killers of Bangabandhu continue to use law of foreign lands as shield to avoid punishment
The spokesperson said the four-member election expert mission from the European Union (EU) will continue to stay in Bangladesh till January 21, 2024.
She said the team had a meeting with additional foreign secretary M. Nazrul islam on November 30.
They met Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal on December 3, said the spokesperson.
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