A Chattogram court has sentenced seven people to life imprisonment for the murder of expatriate Md. Rafique in the Amirbag area of the city. The verdict was delivered on Wednesday by Judge Muhammad Ali Akkas of the Sixth Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court, nearly twenty years after the case began. Along with life imprisonment, each convict was fined 25,000 taka, with an additional one-year jail term in case of non-payment. Eight other accused were acquitted due to lack of evidence.

According to the prosecution, Rafique, who had returned from the United Arab Emirates in July 2007, went missing on August 14 of the same year after leaving his in-laws’ house in the Kadamtali area. Later that night, his body was found at Chattogram Medical College Hospital, and it was revealed that he had been killed and left in Amirbag. His brother Zakir Hossain Lulu filed a murder case with Kotwali Police Station.

Four convicts were present in court during the verdict, while three others were absent. Arrest warrants have been issued for the absconding convicts.