Eighty-four cases. That is how many were filed against Tarique Rahman between 2007 and 2024 — cases involving money laundering, arms trafficking, murder conspiracy, and corruption on a scale that made US Embassy diplomats in Dhaka use the phrase “symbol of kleptocratic government” in classified cables later published by WikiLeaks.
As of March 2025, every single one has been acquitted.
The process was not slow. It was not gradual. It was a single, coordinated legal event — a cascade of acquittals that began within months of the July 2024 uprising and the fall of the Awami League government. Courts that had once sentenced men to death and decades of imprisonment now declared, one after another, that the evidence was insufficient, the trials were flawed, the convictions were unsafe. By September 2025, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh had put its seal on the entire process, dismissing the last remaining petition for retrial in the August 21 grenade attack case.
The accused did not walk free into obscurity. They walked into power.
The Charge Sheet: What Was Proven, Then Unproven
To understand what the Great Acquittal erased, you have to understand what was on the record.
August 21, 2004: The Grenade Massacre
On the evening of August 21, 2004, thirteen Arges grenades rained down on a crowd of 20,000 at an Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka. Twenty-four people were killed. More than 500 were injured. Ivy Rahman, the party’s Women’s Affairs Secretary, died three days later from her wounds.
The trial, which concluded in October 2018 after 14 years, convicted 49 people — including Tarique Rahman, then-senior minister Lutfozzaman Babar, and HuJI-B chief Mufti Abdul Hannan. Several were sentenced to death. Tarique, tried in absentia after fleeing to London, received a life sentence.
The evidence was extensive. Prosecutors presented intercepted communications, witness testimony from military intelligence officers, and forensic analysis matching the grenades to military stockpiles. The trial court’s 4,000-page verdict detailed how the attack was orchestrated through the Prime Minister’s Office and Hawa Bhaban — Tarique’s unofficial power center.
On December 1, 2024 — barely four months after the fall of the Awami League — the High Court acquitted all 49 accused. The court found that the trial had been conducted improperly, that witness testimony was unreliable, and that the prosecution had failed to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
“The High Court annulled the trial court verdict and acquitted all convicts including Tarique Rahman.” — Attorney General’s Office spokesman, December 2024
In September 2025, when the Appellate Division dismissed a petition for retrial, the acquittal became final. The 24 Martyrs of August 21: Who They Were, How They Died, and Why the State Tried to Erase Them
The Chittagong Arms Haul: 4,930 Guns and a Cover-Up
On the night of April 1, 2004, police and Coast Guard intercepted the loading of ten trucks at the Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Limited jetty on the Karnaphuli River. What they found remains the largest arms seizure in Bangladesh’s history: 4,930 firearms, 27,020 grenades, 840 rocket launchers, 300 rockets, and over 1.1 million rounds of ammunition.
The weapons were destined for ULFA — the United Liberation Front of Asom — a militant group fighting for Assam’s independence from India. Indian intelligence confirmed the connection. Two witnesses later told the court that the operation was conducted with the knowledge of NSI and DGFI, Bangladesh’s military intelligence agencies, and that government officials had threatened them with death to keep them silent.
In January 2014, a special court sentenced 14 people to death, including ULFA military chief Paresh Baruah and former minister Lutfozzaman Babar.
In December 2024, the High Court acquitted Babar and five others. In January 2025, it acquitted them in the parallel Arms Act case as well. Paresh Baruah’s death sentence was reduced to 14 years. The Chittagong Arms Haul: 4,930 Guns, 840 Rocket Launchers, and a State-Sponsored Cover-Up
Tarique Rahman’s Money Laundering: $2.5 Million Washed Clean
In June 2007, the Anti-Corruption Commission filed a case against Tarique Rahman and his business partner Giasuddin Al Mamun for laundering Tk 20.41 crore — approximately $2.5 million at the time. The case detailed how Tarique, while serving as the de facto power behind his mother’s government, used his influence to help Mamun acquire and then launder the money through Singapore bank accounts.
A trial court acquitted Tarique in November 2013. But in July 2016, the High Court overturned that acquittal, sentencing him to seven years’ imprisonment and a fine of Tk 20 crore. The court was direct:
“Tarique Rahman influenced political power to help his close friend, Giasuddin Mamun, to get and then launder 200 million taka ($2.5m).” — Deputy Attorney General Moniruzzaman Kabir to AFP, July 2016
That conviction stood for eight years. In December 2024, the Supreme Court stayed the sentence. In March 2025, the Appellate Division acquitted both Tarique and Mamun entirely. “Mr. Ten Percent” — How Tarique Rahman Ran a Parallel Government from Hawa Bhaban (2001-2006)
Khaleda Zia’s Orphanage Trust: Stealing From Children
The Zia Orphanage Trust case was among the most damning. The ACC alleged that Khaleda Zia, through the trust named after her late husband, embezzled funds meant for orphans. In February 2018, a special court convicted Khaleda and sentenced her to five years. By October 2018, the High Court had enhanced the sentence to ten years. Tarique, also convicted, received ten years.
In November 2024, the High Court acquitted Khaleda, declaring the verdict null and void. In January 2025, the Supreme Court acquitted both Khaleda and Tarique in this case and the parallel Zia Charitable Trust case.
Khaleda Zia died on December 30, 2025, having outlived every conviction against her.
Shamim Iskander: The Brother Who Bled Biman Airlines
Khaleda Zia’s younger brother, Shamim Iskander, was a former flight engineer at Biman Bangladesh Airlines who exploited his position as the Prime Minister’s brother to control the airline’s commercial operations. The ACC documented at least Tk 40 crore in commissions from aircraft leases during the BNP tenure, with 36 witnesses lined up to testify.
In March 2025, a Dhaka court simply discharged Shamim Iskander and his wife from the case. The 36 witnesses never testified. By March 2026, Shamim Iskander was sitting in the VIP gallery at the maiden session of the 13th Parliament.
The Pattern: How It Happened
Look at the timeline, and a pattern becomes impossible to ignore.
July 2024: The Awami League government falls. A caretaker administration takes over. Within weeks, the legal machinery begins to reverse.
December 2024: The High Court acquits all 49 accused in the August 21 grenade attack case. The same month, it acquits Babar and others in the Chittagong arms haul. The Supreme Court stays Tarique’s money laundering sentence.
January 2025: The Supreme Court acquits Khaleda and Tarique in the Orphanage Trust and Charitable Trust cases.
March 2025: Tarique and Mamun acquitted in the money laundering case. Shamim Iskander discharged from the Biman corruption case.
September 2025: The Supreme Court dismisses the last petition for retrial in the grenade attack case, making the acquittals final.
February 2026: Tarique Rahman is sworn in as Prime Minister.
There is no independent judiciary in this sequence. There is a judiciary that responded to a political earthquake by undoing every legal consequence of the previous political era. The cases were not retried with new evidence. They were not subjected to fresh scrutiny. They were reversed — comprehensively, rapidly, and with a uniformity that defies coincidence.
What International Observers Said
Human Rights Watch, which documented many of the original crimes under BNP rule, has not issued a formal statement on the acquittals. But their earlier reports provide context that the courts chose to disregard.
Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Bangladesh as the most corrupt country on earth for five consecutive years during BNP rule (2001-2005) — a record no other nation has matched. The scores were not marginal: Bangladesh scored 0.4 out of 10 in 2001, a figure so low that TI itself noted the “very different results” across surveys while still confirming the composite finding.
The International Crisis Group, in its Asia Report No. 121 (October 2006), documented that the BNP-led coalition government “did not target radical Islamist groups” despite religious extremism arising under its watch — the same extremism that culminated in the August 17, 2005 nationwide bombings and the August 21 grenade attack.
US Embassy cables published by WikiLeaks described Tarique Rahman as a “symbol of kleptocratic government” and the “Dark Prince” of Bangladeshi politics. These were not opposition propaganda. They were the assessments of American diplomats stationed in Dhaka, writing in classified communications they never expected to see published.
None of this evidence was presented as new argument in the acquittal proceedings. It was simply ignored.
The Questions Nobody Is Asking
When every conviction from an era is overturned after a regime change, and when those acquitted then assume power, the question is not whether the original trials were fair. The question is whether the acquittals were.
The August 21 grenade attack killed 24 people. The victims’ families spent 14 years waiting for justice. They watched 49 people convicted. Then, in a single court session, they watched all 49 walk free. Nobody has explained to them why the evidence that sustained a 4,000-page verdict was suddenly insufficient.
The Chittagong arms haul put 4,930 military-grade weapons and 27,020 grenades on ten trucks at a government jetty. The connection to Indian insurgents was confirmed by Indian intelligence. The involvement of Bangladesh’s own intelligence agencies was testified to by witnesses who said they were threatened with death. These facts did not change between 2014 and 2024. What changed was the government.
Tarique Rahman’s money laundering was documented in Singapore court records — not Bangladeshi ones. Singapore’s courts convicted his associate, Giasuddin Al Mamun, in a parallel case. The $2.5 million was real. The bank accounts were real. The paper trail crossed international borders. None of this was disputed in the acquittal. It was simply set aside.
The Accused Now Run the Country
There is a word for what has happened in Bangladesh since July 2024, though it is a word that legal scholars prefer to avoid: impunity.
Not the impunity of a single pardon or a single acquittal. The impunity of a system — a legal system that has demonstrated, in case after case, that political power determines legal outcomes. That convictions are provisional. That justice is temporary. That the courts answer to whoever sits in Bangabhaban.
The ICT Is Now a BNP Weapon: How a Party Lawyer Became Chief Prosecutor of the Tribunal That Prosecutes BNP’s Enemies The pattern extends beyond acquittals. In the same month that Shamim Iskander was discharged from his corruption case, the BNP government appointed a party lawyer as the new chief prosecutor of the International Crimes Tribunal — the body that had once prosecuted crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War. The tribunal, repurposed, now targets BNP’s political opponents.
12.1 Million Ghost Voters: How Bangladesh’s Voter Rolls Were Stuffed Before the 2007 Election And before the 2026 election, the same electoral rolls that had been stuffed with 12.1 million fake names before 2007 were quietly reformed — though nobody has been held accountable for the original fraud.
The $300 million ghost company that channeled oil contracts to shell firms with no website, no experience, and political connections? The investigation has been shelved.
The man US diplomats called the “Dark Prince” is now the Prime Minister. His mother’s corruption cases are cleared. His brother-in-law sits in Parliament’s VIP gallery. The arms haul conspirators are free. The grenade massacre convicts are free. Every single case — 84 of them — has been wiped clean.
There is no mechanism in Bangladesh to appeal these acquittals. The Supreme Court has spoken. The legal system considers the matter closed. The victims of August 21, 2004 — the 24 dead, the 500 injured, the families who waited 14 years for accountability — have no further court to approach.
That is not justice. That is its absence.
Sources
- Human Rights Watch, “Bangladesh: Events of 2004-2006,” World Report chapters
- International Crisis Group, Asia Report No. 121, “Bangladesh Today,” October 2006
- Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index, 2001-2005
- US Embassy Cable (Dhaka), “Tarique Rahman: Symbol of Kleptocratic Government,” published by WikiLeaks
- Bangladesh High Court, August 21 Grenade Attack Case, Acquittal Order, December 2024
- Bangladesh Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Dismissal of Retrial Petition, September 2025
- Bangladesh High Court, Chittagong Arms Haul Case, Acquittal Order, December 2024
- Bangladesh Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Money Laundering Case Acquittal, March 2025
- Bangladesh High Court, Zia Orphanage Trust Case Acquittal, November 2024
- Bangladesh Supreme Court, Zia Charitable Trust Case Acquittal, January 2025
- Dhaka District Court, Shamim Iskander Discharge Order, March 2025
- Deputy Attorney General Moniruzzaman Kabir, statement to AFP, July 2016
- Attorney General’s Office spokesman, statement on grenade attack acquittal, December 2024
- NBC News, coverage of August 21 acquittals, December 2024
- Dhaka Tribune, “Shamim Iskander in Parliament VIP Gallery,” March 2026
- The Business Standard, Khaleda Zia case coverage, 2024-2025
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