A Dhaka court today sentenced five people, including senior journalist Shafik Rehman and former acting editor of now defunct daily Amar Desh Mahmudur Rahman, to seven years' imprisonment in a case filed for plotting to abduct and kill Sajeeb Wazed Joy, ICT affairs adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Other three convicts are: Mohammad Ullah Mamun, vice-president of Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangskritik Sangstha (Jasas); and his son Rizvi Ahmed Caesar; and Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan, a businessman living in the United States.
Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Muhammad Asaduzzaman Nur delivered the verdict in the case in their absence at the court, said Additional Public Prosecutor Abdur Rahman Kajol.
The court also fined them Tk 5,000 each, in default of which they will have to suffer one more month in jail.
The punishment of the fugitives will be effective from the day of their arrest or their surrender.
