Colonel (Retd) Rezaur Rahman, a former official of the Directorate-General of Forces Intelligence, made his statement before a Chittagong court in the Chittagong arms case (popularly known as the 'ten-truck arms haul case') on Tuesday.
Metropolitan magistrate Mahbubur Rahman recorded the statement of Reazur, who was the detachment commander of the DGFI in the Chittagong region at that time, under Section 1647 of the Criminal Procedure Code in the afternoon.
Rezaur, in his statement, said he had heard that that the involvement of the National Security Intelligence's officials in the incident had been suppressed in the report of the probe committee at the insistence of Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury, the then director of the DGFI.
'Rezzakul was very dominant in the DGFI due to his strong links with Babar, the then state minister for home affairs,' he said, adding that this was known to officials in the DGFI as well as the army.
He said that Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury had informed him of the seizure of arms and ammunition at the CUFL jetty over the telephone and directed him to inform him of the details after visiting the spot.
He also said that when he had later asked Rezzakul what to do about the smuggling of such a huge amount of arms and ammunition into the country, the latter had replied, 'Don't worry. The probe committee has been looking into the matter. You have nothing to do.'
The police seized a total of 4,930 different types of sophisticated firearms, 27,020 grenades, 840 rocket-launchers, 300 rockets, 2,000 grenade-launching tubes, 6,392 magazines and 11,40,520 bullets while they were being loaded on to 10 trucks from two motorized boats at the jetty of the Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Ltd on 2 April, 2004.
Former directors-general of the NSI Major General (Retd) Rezzakul Haider and retired Brigadier General (Retd) Abdur Rahim, former directors Wing Commander (Retd) Shahabuddin Ahmed and Major (Retd) Liakat Hossain, field officer Akbar Hossain, former managing director of CUFL Mohsin Talukdar and former general manager AKM Enamul Haque are in jail in connection with the case.
A Chittagong court has also shown former state minister for home affairs, Lutfuzzaman Babar, arrested in the sensational case following a petition filed by the investigation officer of the case, Mohammed Moniruzzaman, on October 3 last year.
Source: New Age
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