The United States Government’s Case Against Mohiuddin AKM Ahmed
10 June 2007 1:52 pm by Mash
The United States Government’s Case Against Mohiuddin AKM Ahmed
guest post by Mash
A few months ago I wrote a post about Mohiuddin AKM Ahmed, a man convicted of murdering the founding father of Bangladesh and most of his family in a coup in 1975. To avoid his trial in Bangladesh Mohiuddin fled to the United States in 1996. Soon after the trial in Bangladesh began the United States government began deportation proceedings against Mohiuddin. Mohiuddin filed a petition for political asylum which was denied by an immigration judge, then the Board of Immigration Appeals and finally in February of this year by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Having exhausted all his appeals Mohiuddin was set to be deported last Saturday. However, Mohiuddin was able to get Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott to introduce a private bill, HR 2181, in the House Judiciary committee that aims to give Mohiuddin a green card, even though the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Mohiuddin had engaged in terrorist activity and that his trial in Bangladesh was fair and had followed due process. Mohiuddin’s lawyers have cited this private bill in a case they filed last week with the District Court of Central California asking for a stay of deportation. The District Judge ordered a temporary stay of deportation until a hearing on the case next Tuesday.
The private bill that McDermott introduced probably has no hope of becoming law, but it can be used to stay the deportation if the House Immigration Subcommittee marks up the bill. I called and emailed the Congressman McDermott’s office last week and was told by a staffer over the phone that someone would likely get back to me with some answers as to why the congressman has introduced this extraordinary private bill. I have not yet heard back. I suspect the congressman was misled by Mohiuddin and has not actually seen the overwhelming evidence presented in court.
In the meantime Mohiuddin and his supporters have launched a massive PR campaign portraying him as a hapless victim and wrongfully convicted. Having lost repeatedly in court, they are hoping intervention by politicians will help Mohiuddin to continue to evade justice. They are lobbying Congress hard and are also lobbying Canada to grant him political asylum there.
Because of my posts on the subject, Mohiuddin’s supporters including his son have flocked to my blog to try to discredit my posts. However, the facts do not support their claims. The facts and the evidence that the courts in Bangladesh and the US considered are overwhelmingly against Mohiuddin. To cut through the spin, I have posted the brief that the Justice Department filed with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The evidence and the arguments presented in the brief made the 9th Circuit’s decision easy. I have posted the brief in its entirety and I encourage everyone to read it.
