Suspect exposes Ulfa links with Khaleda Zia's son

Former Bangladesh premier Khaleda Zia's son Tarique Rahman was involved in an abortive smuggling of weapons, believed to be meant for United Liberation Front of Asom militants in Assam, the detained prime accused in the country's biggest ever arms haul case has claimed.

"Hafizur Rahman (the prime accused) has told the magistrate that he had met Tarique Rahman at Hawa Bhaban along with Ulfa leader Paresh Barua on April 1, 2004," the state-run BSS news agency quoted a senior police official as saying on Sunday night.

The official said Hafiz named many other stalwarts of Zia's past Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led four-party alliance government alongside intelligence and administrative officials at the fag end in his confessional statement made over the past two days before a magistrate.

Hafiz's 43-page statement came after he was interrogated in custody for three days while he told the magistrate that he escorted Barua to the Hawa Bhaban days ahead of the offload of the secret consignment.

"Paresh Barua entered into the Hawa Bhaban leaving me outside at the entrance and had a meeting with Tarique Rahman," the official said quoting the statement as saying.

Tarique, who is now the senior vice chairman of BNP and faces a number of graft and criminal cases, is in London while the party leaders said he was being treated there.

On the concluding day of three-day remand three days ago, Hafiz agreed to confess before metropolitan magistrate Mahbubur Rahman who recorded his confessional statements.

Investigation Officer Mohammad Moniruzzaman on Sunday said the latest statement of Hafiz seemed to be a "major development" in the probe since a reinvestigation into the scam was ordered two years ago.

But officials familiar with the statement said Hafiz, however, did not disclose the source of the weapons consignment as he was interrogated at the CID headquarters in Dhaka, and rather most of the time he repeated the information confessed during the two rounds of remands in custody earlier.

The consignment of 10 truckloads of weapons was seized despite suspected efforts by influential quarters for its safe passage through Bangladesh's southeastern port city but the case was shelved for years after the apparently "accidental" seizure.

The past military-backed interim government two years ago ordered the reinvestigation amid allegations that there was a deliberate attempt on the part of the then administration under the BNP-led government to suppress facts.

The CID, which was tasked with reinvestigating the case, obtained an extended three months' time from a Chittagong court while the reinvestigation process led to the arrest of several high-profile intelligence officials including two ex-army generals who earlier headed the apex National Security Intelligence.

Several senior officials were also quizzed.

The latest development cones a month after local government minister Syed Ashraful Islam alleged that Zia's government had arranged a secret meeting of former Pakistan President Parvez Musharraf with jailed Ulfa leader Anup Chetia in Dhaka.