Two B'deshi workers jailed in S'pore for terror financing

Two more Bangladeshi workers in Singapore were today jailed for raising funds to carry out terror attacks in their home country and plotting to overthrow the government there to set up an Islamic State caliphate.

Zzaman Daulat, 34, and Mamum Leakot Ali, 30, were arrested along with four other radicalised Bangladeshi nationals under the Internal Security Act (ISA) in April for planning to topple their government back home.

Zzaman and Mamun were jailed for two years and two and a half years, respectively, after admitting terrorist financing charges in a district court.

The duo had previously denied the charges brought against them under the Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act but pleaded guilty today.
 

Zzaman, a construction worker who earned between SGD 1,300 and SGD 1,500 a month, provided SGD 200 to Rahman Mizanur - the ringleader of the group - to facilitate a terror attack in Bangladesh, the prosecutors said.

In July, Rahman and three others - Miah Rubel, Md Jabath Kysar Haje Norul Islam Sowdagar and Sohel Hawlader Ismail Hawlader - were sentenced to between 24 months and 60 months in jail for financing terrorism.

They had pleaded guilty to one or two counts each of providing or collecting hundreds of dollars to fund terror attacks in Bangladesh.

It was the first time anyone had been convicted under the Act.

Two more Bangladeshi men who were detained for the same plot had not been charged, according to a report by the Channel News Asia.

The eight were detained in April in the first ISA detentions involving a terror cell of foreign workers.

Earlier, reports said the group was focusing on returning to Bangladesh to topple their government through violent means, set up an Islamic State there, and bring it under the self-declared caliphate of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Late last year, a closed religious study group of 27 radicalised Bangladeshi workers who had a significant amount of extremist material in their possession were arrested under the ISA, and deported, according to official announcement then.

The group's deportations were made public in January.

Muslim-majority Bangladesh has seen a spate of brutal attacks on secular bloggers and religious minorities recently, with gunmen killing 20 hostages -- mainly foreigners -- at an upmarket restaurant in the capital Dhaka last month. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State group.