June 18, 2007	Monday	Jumadi-us-Sani 02, 1428

DHAKA, June 17: A former Bangladesh army officer arrested in the United States for his role in the 1975 military-backed coup in the South Asian nation is in the process of being extradited, officials said on Sunday.

The extradition of Mohiuddin A.K.M. Ahmed, who faces the death penalty in Bangladesh, is under way, interim foreign minister Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury said.

“American authorities have started sending him back to the country. And that process has just begun,” he said.

A foreign ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Ahmed has already left the United States, escorted by two officials from the US Department of Homeland Security.

He would not say when the flight would arrive in Dhaka.

Bangladesh’s Foreign Secretary Touhid Hossain had earlier said Ahmed had lost an appeal in a California court to stop his deportation, paving the way for his return to the country within days.

Ahmed, 60, was arrested in Los Angeles in March by US immigration officials tasked with tracking down fugitives.

In 1998, Bangladesh’s high court convicted Ahmed in absentia and sentenced him to death for his role in the coup that resulted in the assassination of the country’s first president and founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Several of Rahman’s aides were also killed, but his daughter, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, survived, serving as prime minister between 1996 and 2001. She is now head of the opposition Awami League.—AFP