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Habiganj Attack

FBI probe help in stalemate

Shakhawat Liton
Lack of clarity of what Bangladesh government wants and refusal of US government to involved itself without clear terms of reference (TOR) have created a stalemate in FBI's investigation into the January 27 grenade attack.
As no progress has been made in clarifying the TOR for the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI), the probe still remains uncertain.
The Bangladesh government wants FBI to be involved in the investigation, but the US State Department is reluctant to participate without a clear TOR.
According to sources, a few days back, the government sent a letter to the US authorities regarding FBI involvement. In the letter, the government wanted FBI to be fully involved in the FROM PAGE 1
that FBI should take full charge.
The US State Department's position is that it never takes full charge of any investigation in a foreign country. It only assists the host government.
Also the fact that nearly 20 days have elapsed since former foreign minister Shah AMS Kibria was killed in the grenade attack, and the scene of crime has not been protected has further dampened FBI's willingness to participate in the investigation.
Meantime, FBI special agent of legal affairs Trung Vu visited Bangladesh on February 9-10 and held talks with a number of government high officials about a draft TOR.
But the TOR could not be finalised as the government and the US agency failed to reach a consensus.
In another development, the US has shown interest to assist Bangladesh in probing the arms hauls that may have link to the deadly grenade attacks carried out in recent time.
The government faces a dilemma in allowing FBI to investigate all these matters as several top policymakers are learnt to have opposed the idea of giving the foreign agency full access to strategic establishments.
Giving full access to evidence as demanded by FBI means the US agency looking into different strategic documents which the defence ministry is reluctant to allow, sources said
The FBI had investigated another
grenade attack on an Awami League rally on August 21 but failed to make any headway as they were not allowed to see all evidence.
The police and BDR seized several huge caches of arms and ammunition in Chittagong, Bogra and Bandarban in the last two years that include grenades, sophisticated rifles, machineguns, mortars and bullets.
After the Chittagong arms haul on April 2 last year, the home ministry handed some arms to Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and the rest were kept in cantonment under army custody, sources said.
Meanwhile, Scotland Yard has declined to be involved in the investigation of the Habiganj grenade attack, diplomatic sources said.
The British intelligence agency came to Bangladesh to probe the grenade attack on the British high commissioner in Sylhet last year.