Former local Awami League leader Torab Ali, who was acquitted in the Peelkhana massacre trial, has died.
He was among the 12 people acquitted from the charges by the High Court last year.
Ali, who had served as the president of ruling party’s Hazarbagh Unit in Dhaka, was one of the two politicians convicted to life in prison by the trial court over the killings at Peelkhana during the 2009 BDR mutiny.
His conviction was overturned on Nov 27, when the High Court delivered its verdict.
But he was not released from the Dhaka Central Jail as the documents were yet to reach the prison authorities.
Police said he died on Friday while being treated at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital(DMCH).
“He was pronounced dead around 6am on Friday by doctors at the coronary care unit,” DMCH police camp’s Sub Inspector Bachchu Mia told.
Ali, who was being kept at Keraniganj’s Dhaka Central Jail, was hospitalised on Wednesday after he fell sick, Hazaribagh Awami League unit’s General Secretary Sadek Halim Saju told.
The mutiny at the border guards’ headquarters eight years ago had sent shock waves across Bangladesh and to the rest of the world, reports bdnews24.
Seventy-four people, including 57 army officers, were brutally murdered by the mutineers on Feb 25-26 in 2009 inside the erstwhile Bangladesh Rifles headquarters in the capital’s Peelkhana.
Torab, who was a retired non-commissioned officer of the BDR, was accused of aiding the killings.
According to the charges leveled by the prosecution, he knew about the mutiny before it took place but had not informed the authorities.
The only other politician convicted in the Peelkhana massacre trial was former BNP MP Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu. He was given a life term by the trial court, but died in jail on May 3, 2015.