Al Jazeera’s Report: Court bins sedition case against 4

A Dhaka court yesterday asked the plaintiff to take back the sedition case filed against four people, including Swedish-Bangladeshi journalist and Netra News Editor-in-Chief Tasneem Khalil and Hungary-based entrepreneur Zulkarnain Saer Khan alias Sami, over the recent Al Jazeera report titled All the Prime Minister's Men.

The two other accused are: British journalist David Bergman and Mostefa Souag, acting director general of Al Jazeera Media Network.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Md Shahidul Islam passed the order as Moshiur Malek, founder and president of Bangabandhu Foundation, also the complainant of the case, was not empowered by the government to file the lawsuit, Atiqur Rahman, bench assistant of the court, told The Daily Star.

Malek had filed the case with Dhaka Metropolitan Magistatre Md Ashek Imam on February 17.

After holding hearing, the magistrate fixed yesterday (February 23) for passing an order on the issue.

In the complaint, Malek said Al Jazeera ran a report on February 1 which was also published on YouTube and online newspapers.

In his statement to the court, he said the accused were conspiring to "topple" the country's elected government through this report. He appealed to the court to issue arrest warrants against the accused through Interpol.

Earlier in May last year, Tasneem Khalil and Zulkarnain were sued for objectionable posts on social media against the state, Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and several important persons of the country.

They were also charged with "tarnishing the image of the nation".

On February 4 this year, Sub-Inspector Md Mohsin Sardar of Ramna Police Station, also the investigation officer of the case, dropped their names from the probe report as he did not find enough evidence against them.

The IO included the names of cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore, writer Mushtaq Ahmed and Rashtrochinta activist Didarul Islam Bhuiyan in the charge sheet of the case.

But on February 10, Judge Mohammad Ash Sams Joglul Hossain of the Dhaka Cyber Tribunal ordered further investigation into the case filed under the Digital Security Act against eleven people, including Tasneem Khalil and Zulkarnain, after the prosecution submitted a petition, seeking further probe.

The tribunal also ordered the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of police to further investigate all the 11 accused and submit the probe report to it by March 23.