Chamber court upholds Farabi’s bail in blogger Avijit Roy murder case
Farabi’s lawyer said if there are no other cases pending against him, there is no legal bar to release him from prison
The Appellate Division Chamber Court today (10 August) upheld the High Court's bail order for Shafiur Rahman Farabi, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in the murder case of blogger and writer Avijit Roy.
Justice Md Rezaul Haque of the Chamber Judge's Court issued a "no order" ruling after hearing an appeal filed by the Attorney General's Office, effectively keeping the High Court's bail order in place, lawyers said.
On 30 July, a High Court bench, led by Justice Zakir Hossain and Justice KM Rasheduzzaman Raja, granted bail to Farabi. The Attorney General's Office appealed to the Chamber Judge's Court seeking its cancellation.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Senior lawyer SM Shahjahan and Deputy Attorney General Khaled Saifullah moved for Farabi in the Appellate Division hearing, while the Attorney General's Office represented the state.
Farabi's lawyer said if there are no other cases pending against him, there is no legal bar to release him from prison.
Following the 30 July bail order, Farabi's lawyer Muhammad Hujjatul Islam Khan told reporters that the High Court had earlier accepted Farabi's appeal against the trial court's 2021 verdict for hearing.
In support of the bail plea, it was argued that although four co-accused gave confessional statements in the case, none of them mentioned Farabi's name. Additionally, no witness – except the investigating officer – linked him to the crime, and Farabi himself did not give any confessional statement.
Farabi, a former student of Chittagong University, has been behind bars since March 2015, when he was arrested as the key suspect in the Avijit murder.
Known for his campaigns against free thinkers on social media and blogsphere, he was arrested as the key suspect in the Avijit murder. He allegedly had issued repeated threats to the writer.
On 26 February 2015, Mukto Mona blog founder Avijit Roy, son of late physicist Ajoy Roy, was hacked to death, while his wife Banya escaped with serious injuries after unidentified assailants attacked them with cleavers near TSC on the Dhaka University campus as they were returning home from the Amor Ekushey Boi Mela.
Avijit's father filed a murder case with Shahbagh police station the very next day.
On 16 February 2021, a Dhaka tribunal sentenced five members of the banned militant group Ansar-Al-Islam to death and another to life imprisonment for Avijit Roy's killing.
