Court orders further probe in DSA case against Sami and 10 others

A special tribunal today ordered further probe in a case lodged under the Digital Security Act (DSA) against 11 people including Zulkarnain Shayer Khan alias Sami, who appeared in an allegedly false and politically motivated report, telecast by Al Jazeera recently.

Judge As-Shams Jaglul Hossain of Bangladesh Cyber Tribunal passed the order today and set 23 February to submit the report by the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crimes (CTTC) unit.

The court came up with the order, allowing a prosecution plea to further investigate the case. The prosecution also filed naraji (no confidence) petition against the charge-sheet for dropping names of eight accused including Sami on 9 February.

Earlier on 13 January, police filed the charge-sheet against cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore, Rashtrachinta coordinator Didarul Bhuiyan and writer Mushtak Ahmed.

Police, however, excluded the names of eight accused -- Minhaj Mannan, Tasnim Khalil, Sahed Alam, Asif Mohiuddin, Sami, Ashik Imran, Swapan Wahid and Philip Shumakher from the charge-sheet.

The investigation officer pleaded to acquit them of the charges, saying the allegations brought against them have not been proved.

Earlier, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) filed the case against 11 people on 5 May, last year, on the charges of spreading anti-state falsehood to tarnish the image of Bangladesh and create confusion from a Facebook page.