{"id":10991,"date":"2018-08-10T02:24:38","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T02:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=10991"},"modified":"2018-08-10T02:24:38","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T02:24:38","slug":"british-bangladeshi-citizen-detained-since-2016-cafe-attack-freed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=10991","title":{"rendered":"British-Bangladeshi citizen detained since 2016 cafe attack freed"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A\u00a0British-Bangladeshi citizen has been released from prison in Bangladesh<\/a> after being held for two years over suspicion of involvement in\u00a0a major\u00a0restaurant attack<\/a> in the capital, Dhaka.<\/p>\n

The Anti-Terrorism Special Tribunal on Wednesday cleared\u00a0Hasnat Karim<\/span> of terrorism charges\u00a0<\/span>after accepting a police chargesheet that named eight suspects involved in the deadly 2016 attack on the Holey Artisan restaurant.<\/p>\n

“During our two-year long investigation, we did not find any involvement [of Karim] in this attack directly or indirectly, so he was acquitted from this case,” said Monirul Islam, the head of Bangladeshi police’s counterterrorism and transnational crime unit.<\/p>\n

Karim, a businessman and former university professor, was released on Thursday.<\/p>\n

He was in the upmarket restaurant on July 1, 2016, to celebrate his daughter’s birthday when a group of gunmen linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL<\/a>, also known as ISIS) group attacked the venue, killing more than 20 foreigners.<\/p>\n

The attackers spared many Bangladeshi guests and restaurant employees, releasing them the following morning.<\/p>\n

Karim and his family were among those released.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\nAmnesty International voiced serious criticism over Karim’s two-year detention\u00a0<\/span>[File: AP]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The police later put Karim and student Tahmid Khan on the suspect list and held both men in secret detention for a month without court authorisation.<\/p>\n

When they were formally arrested, the police said they\u00a0were found on the streets of Dhaka.<\/p>\n

Khan was released a few weeks later, but Karim remained in jail for another two years, accused of having links to the banned organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir without any evidence.<\/p>\n

Inhumane and illegal<\/span>
<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Amnesty International<\/a>, a global rights organisation, voiced criticism over his detention.<\/p>\n

“Hasnat Karim and his family were victims of a terror attack. They should have never have been forced through two years of further trauma with Karim suffering unfairly behind bars,” said Kate Allen, the UK director of Amnesty International.<\/p>\n

“Karim’s detention was inhumane and illegal. The end of his suffering is a cause for celebration, but we must not forget that sadly, he is not alone in being a target of the Bangladeshi authorities’ arbitrary force of law.”<\/p>\n

Speaking to Al Jazeera as Karim was released, his wife Sharmina Parveen said: “I don’t want to say much. Obviously, I am so relieved.”<\/p>\n

Sabera Karim, his older sister, who is based in the United States, said: “Our father died whilst Hasnat was in jail. My brother’s detention broke his heart and, and I wish he could have been here to see that he came home.<\/p>\n

“I am overwhelmingly happy right now but it feels incomplete as my father is not here.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A\u00a0British-Bangladeshi citizen has been released from prison in Bangladesh after being held for two years over suspicion of involvement in\u00a0a major\u00a0restaurant attack in the capital, Dhaka. The Anti-Terrorism Special Tribunal on Wednesday cleared\u00a0Hasnat Karim of terrorism charges\u00a0after accepting a police chargesheet that named eight suspects involved in the deadly 2016 attack on the Holey Artisan…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":10992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}