From “Symbol of Kleptocratic Government” to Prime Minister: The World Spoke. Then It Forgot.
Part of the Bangladesh Untold Series 7: 1/11 Season 2 — The 2024 Parallels
On November 3, 2008, a senior American diplomat in Dhaka sat down and wrote one of the most damning assessments of any living politician in South Asia. The cable was classified CONFIDENTIAL. It was addressed to the Secretary of State. It bore the subject line: “VISAS DONKEY CORRUPTION 212(F) — RAHMAN, TARIQUE.”
The author was James F. Moriarty, United States Ambassador to Bangladesh. His subject was Tarique Rahman, the son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and the man who ran Bangladesh’s largest opposition party from a flat in London.
Moriarty’s verdict was not hedged. It was not diplomatic. It was a clinical, sourced, documented indictment:
“Tarique Rahman, the notorious and widely feared son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia… Notorious for flagrantly and frequently demanding bribes in connection with government procurement actions and appointments to political office, Tarique is a symbol of kleptocratic government and violent politics in Bangladesh.“
— US Embassy Cable 08DHAKA1143, November 3, 2008 (WikiLeaks)
The Ambassador went further. He named companies, dollar amounts, and case numbers. He cited the FBI. He cited the Department of Justice. He called for Tarique to be barred from entering the United States under Presidential Proclamation 7750, reserved for individuals engaged in “egregious political corruption.”
He concluded: “In short, much of what is wrong in Bangladesh can be blamed on Tarique and his cronies.”
That was 2008.
On February 17, 2026, the same Tarique Rahman was sworn in as the Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.
The world watched. And then, largely, said nothing.
What the US Ambassador Documented
Cable 08DHAKA1143 is not vague. It is not impressionistic. It reads like a prosecutor’s briefing — specific, sourced, and calibrated. This matters because it is not what critics said. It is not what opposition politicians alleged. It is the considered, classified judgment of the United States government, based on embassy intelligence and active law enforcement cooperation.
Here is what it documented:
Siemens. Tarique Rahman extracted approximately a 2% commission on all Siemens contracts in Bangladesh, paid in US dollars. The US Department of Justice Asset Forfeiture Unit and the FBI were actively investigating this. The cable names this explicitly.
Harbin Company. A Chinese company paid $750,000 to Tarique. The money was transported to Singapore for deposit into a Citibank account. The cable identifies this as part of a transnational money laundering operation.
Monem Construction. The construction firm paid a $450,000 bribe to Tarique in exchange for contracts.
Al Amin Construction. Tarique threatened the owner with business closure unless the company paid him $150,000.
The Kabir Murder Case. Tarique accepted 210 million taka ($3.1 million) to obstruct prosecution of a murder case. The accused was the son of the Bashundhara Group chairman — one of Bangladesh’s most powerful business families.
Zia Orphanage Trust. A charitable fund established in the name of former President Ziaur Rahman — Tarique’s father — was looted. Twenty million taka intended for orphans was redirected to land purchases and BNP election campaigns.
The Ambassador’s summary: “Tarique reportedly has accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit wealth.”
And then the line that goes beyond corruption into political violence: “His flagrant disregard for the rule of law has provided potent ground for terrorists to gain a foothold in Bangladesh.”
The cable was not written in isolation. It was written against the backdrop of everything that had already happened. The August 21, 2004 grenade attack — in which 24 people were killed and over 500 wounded at an Awami League rally — had already been investigated. HUJI operative Mufti Abdul Hannan had already confessed that the attack was planned at Hawa Bhaban, the shadow government Tarique ran from his mother’s compound. The court would later find a “well-orchestrated plan executed through abuse of state power.”
Tarique’s name was already in that file. The FBI’s name was already in that file. The Ambassador knew it. He documented it. He filed it with the Secretary of State.
And in 2010, WikiLeaks published it for the world to read.
The Charges, the Courts, the Convictions
When the military-backed caretaker government took power on January 11, 2007 — the event that became known simply as “1/11” — one of its primary targets was Tarique Rahman. He was arrested on March 7, 2007. Over the following years, 84 criminal cases were registered against him.
The cases covered money laundering, extortion, arms trafficking, the grenade attack, abuse of power, and the looting of charitable funds. They were not invented overnight. Many predated 1/11 entirely — they were cases that BNP’s own government had suppressed while in office.
Tarique was held for 18 months. He was released on bail in September 2008, reportedly after signing a written declaration at Zia International Airport agreeing to leave Bangladesh and resign from political activity. The US Embassy cable, filed weeks later, confirmed this: “released from prison in September 2008… in connection with a written declaration at the airport that he was resigning from political activity.”
He went to London. He never stopped running BNP.
Over the following decade and a half, the courts continued working through his cases. In 2016, he was convicted in the Zia Orphanage Trust case: seven years imprisonment, Tk 10 lakh fine. In 2018, he was convicted in the August 21, 2004 grenade attack case: life imprisonment. The court found direct involvement, planned at Hawa Bhaban, executed through the machinery of state power.
As of 2024, Tarique Rahman was a convicted murderer — found guilty by a court of law for the deadliest political attack in modern Bangladeshi history — living in London, running his party by video call, and waiting.
July 2024: The Ground Shifts
In July 2024, Bangladesh’s political history broke open. What began as student protests against a job quota system became an uprising. The Hasina government fired on protesters. The internet went dark. Hundreds died in the streets.
But the movement could not be stopped. On August 5, 2024, Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh by military helicopter, ending fifteen years of Awami League rule. An interim government under Nobel laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus took charge.
For Tarique Rahman, the waiting was over.
What followed was a judicial process of breathtaking speed and comprehensiveness. Between late 2024 and mid-2025, Tarique Rahman’s 84 criminal cases were systematically dismissed, acquitted, or otherwise erased.
The grenade attack conviction — life imprisonment, handed down by a trial court after years of evidence and hundreds of witnesses — was overturned in December 2024. The Zia Orphanage Trust conviction — seven years for looting a charitable fund — was overturned in January 2025. The money laundering case — the one the FBI had been investigating — was overturned in March 2025.
Every case. Every conviction. Every sentence. All 84.
Not because of new evidence. Not because witnesses recanted. Not because DNA exonerated him. Because the political order had changed, and the courts reflected the political order.
This is the same pattern Bangladesh Untold has documented throughout BNP’s history: the rule of law is whatever the government in power says it is. The convictions from 2001-2006 said: BNP killed people, looted the state, harbored terrorists. The acquittals from 2024-2025 said: none of that happened.
It cannot be both. History is one thing. Courts are another.
February 17, 2026
Tarique Rahman returned to Bangladesh in early 2026. The BNP won the general election. He was sworn in as Prime Minister on February 17, 2026, by President Mohammed Shahabuddin.
Cameras flashed. Hands were shaken. The cabinet was formed — fifty members. International congratulations arrived, cautious but present. The man the US Ambassador had called a “symbol of kleptocratic government” was now the head of government of a country of 170 million people.
The same man. The same record. The same WikiLeaks cable, still publicly available at its original URL for anyone who wants to read it.
And yet the international reaction was not what Cable 08DHAKA1143 would have predicted.
The Silence
When Ambassador Moriarty filed that cable in 2008, he was recommending that Tarique be barred from the United States for egregious political corruption. The cable cited active FBI and DOJ involvement. It cited specific dollar amounts and specific transactions that constituted federal crimes under US law.
In 2026, none of that was mentioned in the congratulatory statements.
This is not a surprise. It is how geopolitics works. But it is worth naming clearly, because the people of Bangladesh deserve clarity about what has actually happened.
The international community — which expressed deep concern about Bangladesh’s democratic backsliding under Sheikh Hasina, which documented extrajudicial killings, which sanctioned RAB, which issued reports and press releases and resolutions — has largely concluded that the 2024 transition represents democratic progress. In some respects, it does. In others, it requires more careful scrutiny.
Because the question is not whether BNP is better or worse than what preceded it. The question is whether the documented record — the FBI investigation, the corruption findings, the grenade attack conviction, the WikiLeaks cable — constitutes something that matters. Something that cannot simply be acquitted away by a new set of courts.
Tarique Rahman’s cases were not overturned because he was proven innocent. They were overturned because he won an election. That is not the same thing. That has never been the same thing.
The Numbers That Don’t Change
History does not acquit. Courts do. These are different things.
The trial court that convicted Tarique of life imprisonment in the August 21, 2004 grenade attack did so after examining evidence collected over fourteen years. The judgment ran to thousands of pages. It named co-conspirators, identified the supply chain for the Arges grenades (Belgian military-grade weapons that had no business being on a civilian street in Dhaka), and reconstructed the planning meetings at Hawa Bhaban.
That judgment was not wrong because an appeals court later overturned it. It was a finding of fact by a court of law. The evidence does not disappear because the verdict was reversed.
The Siemens bribery. The Harbin Company. The Monem Construction payment. The Kabir murder obstruction. The orphanage money. These were not invented by political enemies. They were documented by the United States Embassy, corroborated by the FBI, detailed in cables sent to the Secretary of State.
The Transparency International ranking that made Bangladesh the world’s most corrupt country for five consecutive years — 2001 to 2006, precisely the years Tarique ran Hawa Bhaban — does not become untrue because he is now Prime Minister. The corruption lowered Bangladesh’s economic growth rate by two percent per year. Those are real GDP points that never materialized. Real factories that were never built. Real jobs that were never created.
The 24 people killed on August 21, 2004 — murdered at a political rally, blown apart by grenades supplied by state actors — did not come back to life when the conviction was overturned. Their names are documented. Their stories are on this site. A court once said: this was planned at Hawa Bhaban. That court’s finding does not cease to be a finding because a later court disagreed.
What This Means Going Forward
Bangladesh Untold has never argued that 1/11 was perfect. The caretaker government that took power in January 2007 operated under emergency rule. It detained politicians without trial, suppressed the press, and used military courts. These were serious problems. We have documented them.
But the argument that 1/11 was wrong does not automatically make everything the previous BNP government did right. These are separate questions. The anti-corruption drive of 2007-2008 may have been imperfect. The crimes it was responding to were real.
The people who carried out those crimes — who looted the state, who harbored militants, who planned a grenade attack on the opposition leadership, who presided over five years of international rankings as the world’s most corrupt government — are now in power again.
That is not a partisan statement. That is the documented record.
The US Ambassador said in 2008: “In short, much of what is wrong in Bangladesh can be blamed on Tarique and his cronies.”
He did not say this was alleged. He said it was true. He recommended a visa ban for egregious corruption. His government agreed.
Eighteen years later, that man is Prime Minister. The visa ban recommendation is in a WikiLeaks archive. The FBI investigation presumably has a file somewhere. The 24 people killed at an Awami League rally are still dead.
Bangladesh’s people deserve to hold all of this in their heads at once. Not to be told that the acquittals prove innocence. Not to be told that winning elections erases history. Not to be given a choice between an authoritarian who clamped down on press freedom and a man who was once convicted of mass murder at a political rally.
They deserve the full record. This site exists to provide it.
The cable was written in 2008. It described what happened between 2001 and 2006. It named the man responsible for much of it.
That man is now Prime Minister. His name is Tarique Rahman.
History doesn’t acquit. It records.
Source Notes
- US Embassy Cable 08DHAKA1143 — “Visas Donkey Corruption 212(F) — Rahman, Tarique,” Ambassador James F. Moriarty, November 3, 2008. Available at: WikiLeaks
- Al Jazeera — “Tarique Rahman sworn in as new Bangladesh prime minister,” February 17, 2026
- Prothom Alo — “Tarique Rahman takes oath as PM, forms 50-member cabinet,” February 17, 2026
- DW — “Bangladesh’s new prime minister sworn in after landslide win,” February 2026
- Bangladesh Untold — US Embassy Cables: What American Diplomats Really Thought About Tarique Rahman
- Bangladesh Untold — The Great Acquittal: How Every BNP-Era Conviction Was Overturned Post-2024
- Bangladesh Untold — August 21, 2004: The Grenade Attack That Nearly Killed Democracy
Bangladesh Untold is an independent documentation project covering the political history of Bangladesh, 2001–present. All articles are source-backed. Primary sources are linked where available.
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