US embassy cable - 05DHAKA3901

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 DHAKA 003901 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/10/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, BG 
SUBJECT: CDA PRESSES BDG ON KIBRIA CASE 
 
 
Classified By: A/DCM D.C. McCullough, reasons para 1.4 b, d 
 
1. (S) Summary.  CDA told BDG officials the Kibria case 
continues to receive high-level USG scrutiny, and expressed 
frustration that since May our requests for cooperation have 
produced only delays and half-measures.  The USG, she said, 
does not want to be in the awkward position of saying BDG 
cooperation has ended. Home Minister of State Babar assured 
CDA he is committed to justice in the Kibria case, but was 
defensive on several points.  The next day, MHA convoked RLA 
with new promises of cooperation, including a much-improved 
formula for meeting with lead defendant Quayyum.  End Summary. 
 
2. (SBU)  On August 9, CDA and RLA met for 40 minutes with 
Home Affairs Minister of State Lutfuzzaman Babar.  Also 
present were General Haider of NSI, PMO Foreign Affairs 
Advisor Reaz Rahman, Home Secretary Safar Hossain, and MHA 
Joint Secretary Muhammad Mohsin. 
 
3. (C) Babar characterized as excellent his recent visit to 
the USG.  The Kibria case, he said, featured prominently in 
most of his meetings, and he had assured his interlocutors 
that Bangladesh is fully cooperating with the USG on the 
investigation and that he was committed to seeing justice 
done.  Legal action by the Kibria family, he regretted, has 
just delayed the start of the trial for up to three years. 
 
4. (S) CDA expressed frustration with the BDG's dilatory 
response to our requests for information critical to the 
investigation.  Regarding phone records for August 
2004-December 2004 for Quayyum, the lead defendant, she 
stated that reliable sources assure us that two years of data 
are kept on hard disc which can be retrieved with a formal 
MHA request.  MHA's letter to a customer service agent, who 
replied that records are kept for only two months, should not 
be the end of the matter.  She suggested that Babar 
personally call the managing director of Grameen telephone to 
seek his help.  Babar turned to Home Secretary Hossain, and 
instructed him to make the call. 
 
5. (S) Concerning the phone records of PMO Political 
Secretary Haris Chowdhury, General Haider stated that the 
 
SIPDIS 
logs for Chowdhury's residence land line are erased after 
three months.  For the office phone, he claimed, engineers 
were sitting down in his office with Nortel to try and 
retrieve the data.  He stated that the hard disc may have to 
be sent to Singapore to retrieve the data because Bangladesh 
does not have the technology to retrieve erased material from 
the recycle bin.  Haider added, however, that he did have 
"some" records for the residence for November and December. 
He then complained that if we had requested these records 
earlier, there would have been no problem. (Note: We first 
requested the records on April 28 at the end of the FBI 
interview with Harris Chowdhury, who agreed to provide them. 
Haider, who was at the interview, undertook to take care of 
it.)  Babar told Hossain to call also about the Chowdhury 
records. 
 
6. (S) CDA expressed concern that conditions, in a moving 
police van, for the planned one-hour meeting between A/LEGAT 
and RLA with Quayyum were not conducive to a proper 
interview.  We agreed to the conditions to be flexible, but, 
if a proper interview were not possible, we would request 
another.  She stressed that at least two hours were necessary 
for the interview.  Babar responded testily that "we are 
going out of our way" and the USG should not "want to see us 
embarrassed" in the media.  The BDG, he insisted, must "do 
everything lawfully" as well as maintain confidentiality. 
Once the charge sheet was submitted (on April 30), 
Bangladesh's criminal procedure rules greatly complicated 
giving us access to Quayyum, and the U.S. should have asked 
to see him before that.  CDA noted that we had requested 
access first in March, which led to a brief, unsatisfactory 
encounter between A/LEGAT and Quayyum on March 27, and we had 
subsequently asked for a second meeting on numerous 
occasions. 
 
7. (S)  CDA told Babar that the Kibria case continues to 
receive high-level USG scrutiny, and that we did not want to 
be in the awkward position of having to say that BDG 
cooperation on the investigation had effectively come to an 
end.  The BDG officials took the point. 
 
8. (S) On August 10, MHA's Mohsin convoked RLA to inform her 
that a meeting with Quayyum would now be possible in a room 
in the Moulvibazaar jail on August 16 and could last as long 
as necessary.  (Comment: This arrangement is a vast 
improvement over the original plan.)  He also said that 
Grameen "will try their best" to get the records, and that a 
policeman was sent that morning to pick up whatever data 
could be retrieved.  Referring to the issue of badly copied 
bank documents that obscured the payee's name but showed 
telltale fragments of underlying documents not handed over, 
he promised the documents would be taken out of their binder 
and properly copied one by one. 
 
9. (S) Comment: We have clearly captured the attention of a 
nervous BDG.  However, it is still unclear whether the BDG's 
frustrating response to our requests stems from a lack of 
will, indolence, a cover-up, or all three.  The meeting with 
Quayyum, assuming it comes off, could make or break the case. 
CHAMMAS