A special Border Guard Bangladesh court on Thursday sentenced 59 soldiers of 38 Border Guards Battalion to different terms and fined them Tk 100 each on charge of mutiny at the battalion headquarters in Sylhet in February 2009.
The Special Court-14 set up at the Sylhet sector headquarters in the city’s Akhalia, acquitted 2 of the 61 accused as the charges brought against them could not be proved during the trial.
The three-member special court chair, Colonel SM Farhad, also communication director at the BGB headquarters in Dhaka, pronounced the verdict in presence of the 61 soldiers.
The court ordered execution of the sentences from Thursday at any civil prison in the country.
The judge also ordered release of five other accused, who were acquitted of munity charges, if any other cases were not filed against them.
Of the convicts, 12 were jailed for seven years, two were for six years and six months, seven for six years, three for five years, two for four years, seven for three years and six months, five for three years, one for two years and six months and another for two years.
The rest 19 convicts were given sentences between one year and a half and 4 months.
The BDR personnel who were handed the highest 7-year sentence years, are habildar Md Akhtaruzzaman, lance nayeks Abdus Salam Mandal, Md Sajjadur Rahman, Md Shafiqul Islam and Md Faridul Islam and sepoys Md Enamul Haque, Md Moniruzzaman, Asaduzzaman, Saleh Akram Roni, Enamul Haque-2, Zahangir Alam and Zakir Hossain.
The 38 Battalion’s acting commanding officer Major Md Aman Ullah Khan, also prosecutor in the case, brought the allegations against the accused on October 19 and the special court-14 began trial in the case after taking the allegation into cognizance.
Lieutenant Colonel Akhtaruzzaman and Major Maksudul Alam were the other two members in the judges’ panel, while deputy attorney general Farhad Ahmad assisted the court as the attorney general’s representative.
With the latest sentences, 395 soldiers have so far been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for different terms for the bloody rebellion, which began on February 25, 2009 at the border guards headquarters in Dhaka and flared up in different BGB establishments across the country.
The first verdict in mutiny cases was pronounced in Panchagarh on April 7. In the verdict, 29 soldiers of the 25 Battalion were jailed.
Later, special courts sentenced 50 soldiers of the 20 Battalion on April 12 in Thakurgaon, 57 soldiers of the 9 Battalion on April 18 in Feni, 56 soldiers of the 7 Battalion of Nildumur at Shyamnagar on April 19 in Satkhira, 9 soldiers of 12 Battalion of Langadu in Rangamati on May 2, 35 soldiers of 10 Battalion’s Bolipara camp on November 9 in Bandarban, 23 solders of 31 Battalion on November 23 in Lalmonirhat, 20 soldiers of the 3 Battalion on December 23 in Jaipurhat and 39 soldiers of the 21 Battalion in Sylhet on December 29.
The courts so far acquitted 18 soldiers, including the two on Thursday, of the charges.
The courts acquitted of the charges one soldier in Thakurgaon, five in Feni, four in Satkhira, one in Lalmonirhat and five in Sylhet.
