Ex-NSI boss held

Ctg Arms Haul Case
Ex-NSI boss held
He allegedly played key role in arranging transport
Former director (Security) of National Security Intelligence (NSI) Sahab Uddin was arrested in the capital’s Green Road yesterday for his alleged involvement in arranging transport and equipment for carrying the illegal arms and ammunition seized at CUFL jetty in Chittagong on April 02, 2004.
Sahab Uddin, a wing commander of Bangladesh Air Force who joined the NSI on deputation, went into voluntary retirement soon after the arms haul.
The arrest was made after detained NSI Field Officer Akbar Hossain Khan in a confessional statement before a magistrate on Saturday said he hired seven trucks and a crane from Greenways, a transport agency, for carrying the arms and ammunition on orders of Sahab Uddin.
The former NSI director, being taken to Chittagong amid tight security yesterday evening, is to be produced before a Chittagong court today, say sources in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) assigned to investigate the arms haul case.
In the seven-page confessional statement to Metropolitan Magistrate Mahbubur Rahman, Akbar said the trucks were supposed to carry the consignment up to Moulvibazar border while the crane was required for offloading those at Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Company Ltd (CUFL) jetty.
Akbar sensed that the trucks and crane were needed to offload and carry something illegal but he could not imagine that it might be a huge consignment of illegal firearms and ammunition, said sources quoting the confessional statement.
He was arrested and placed on a two-day remand on April 19 after the owner and manager of Greenways identified him as the person who hired the trucks and the crane.
Akbar was placed on a 7-day fresh remand on April 26 as the investigators of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) failed to glean anything important from him in the two-day remand that ended on April 21.
He had been quizzed at the task force interrogation cell in Dhaka since April 27 before he was brought back to Chittagong for making confessional statement on Saturday.

Courtesy of The Daily Star