Articles on the police investigation into the murder of Cesare Tavella

On 28 September, the Italian national, Cesare Tavella was shot to death with eye-witnesses pointing to the involvement of three people, two of whom were on a motorbike. Islamic state claimed responsibility for the murder, though the government says that this is not true.

The police authorities have arrested five people - the three people who they say were present at the scene of the murder, the person who provided the bike (all four of whom have provided confessional statements) and the alleged financier of the operation, who is the brother of an opposition party ward commissioner who has been out of the country since April this year.

Here are four articles published in New Age newspaper concerning the police investigation. (Also see here an overall analysis of the investigation)

‘I was threatened with crossfire’, accused tells family (New Age, November 11)David Bergman and Muktadir Rashid

Another man accused of the murder of Italian citizen Cesare Tavella in Dhaka has told his family that he gave a confessional statement to a metropolitan magistrate as he was ‘brutally tortured’ and ‘threatened with cross fire.’
Four relatives of the accused, Rasel Chowdhury, met him on Saturday in Kashimpur Central Jail where he had been remanded two days earlier by a metropolitan magistrate after confessing to his involvement in the murder on September 28 of the Italian NGO worker in Gulshan’s diplomatic zone.
On October 26, along with three other men, Rasel was presented to the media and accused of involvement in the murder of Cesara. Police said that all the four were arrested the previous night, though witnesses claimed that the men were picked up separately two weeks earlier between October 10 and 15.

Tavella Murder: 5 'arrests', 5 secret detentions, 4 'confessions

MA Matin, at the magistrate court

On Thursday, 5 November New Age published an article on the alleged pick up by law enforcing authorities of MA Matin, the brother of MA Quayum who law enforcement authorities alleged was the master-mind behind the killings of the Italian NGO worker in Dhaka at the end of September.

In front of many eye-witnesses, including shopkeepers and local people, at about 7.30 pm on Tuesday the 20 October, as he was on his way to say his prayers, Matin was pushed into a microbus van just around the corner from where he lived by men in plain clothes.

As the article went to press, 15 days after this detention, Matin was still missing - presumably in the secret and illegal detention of law enforcement authorities.

However, early that very morning - somewhat miraculously - the police suddenly announced that "the detective branch has arrested MA Matin in connection with Tavella murder from Benapole, Jessore tonight while [he was] trying to leave the country."