ah ah ah ah, this is the w news live from harland. extrajudicial killings allegedly carried out by bangladesh as elite police squad. a special d w investigation reveals how rab, rapid action battalion which was set to fight terrorism, takes the law into its own hands. also coming up authorities in russia,

arrest women in connection with the st. petersburg, cafe explosion that killed a prominent military blogger and coast of both former president hush. and tachi goes on trial for war primes, dating back to his country's fight for independence. in the late 19 ninety's. ah, i'm sarah tele, welcome to the program. we began in bangladesh where a d, w and natural news investigation has uncovered details of killings linked to the country's elite police force. the rapid action battalion or rab, was set up in 2004 as part of the us led war on terror. it was trained and equipped by the u. s. and other western countries to fight extremist violence. the rob has

in long facing accusations of grave human rights abuses, claims which the bangladesh government has repeatedly denied, but did amuse investigative unit together with its sweden based partner. spoke to insiders, who for the 1st time revealed how evidence of how the 4 seemingly commit extrajudicial killings. some viewers might find this report disturbing. 2 or the phone call you about to hear captures in alleged murder in southern bangladesh . it was recorded in 2018 by shabby whom she connected to aspens phone only seconds before he was killed. oh. 1 ah. 3 earlier the day ackerman huck had been taken by the rapid action battalion, an elite unit of the bag, reddish police, long accused of kidnappings, torture and hundreds of killings. let me say so piggly. there whole other. i want

justice little how was my husband killed and why the who gave the order? not only the recording continues for another 10 minutes. we're sirens and orders to plant ammunition and drugs close to the dying man. more shots are fired later, the official police report stated that a chrome attack died in a shootout between drug dealers over the audio dumb little do you publish. audio is classic evidence of how an operation is staged. i did take part in extra judicial killings and torture. torture this vis a blow is one of 2 former wrap command us who are the 1st to speak up about the rabb systemic human rights abuses which bangladesh government has long the night. in detail, they describe how the elite squad has abducted torture and kid revealing the wraps playbook for extra judicial killings. ah, it dark. in some cases,

the scenes are made up beforehand or sometimes afterwards, and but all the evidence is planted to blood, grow her even better and there's nothing written about it will not know order is given in writing for months. d, w and nitro news investigated the rapid action battalion a force of 13000, which was originally founded to fight terrorism and crime in bangladesh. but according to the whistleblowers, it is also used as a political tool to silence opponents of the government. political, the engagement decision on any political target would come at the very least from the ministry of home affairs, whom he needed was a must to get clearance from home affairs. little it won't hurt us too. and if the home affairs minister gave such an order, it's very unlikely the prime minister of bangladesh, it didn't know about it. recall as there's no paper trail, it's hard to verify that claim. but we corroborated the whistle blowers.

testimonies was victims, accounts, medical records, police reports and data from human rights organizations. when confronted was our findings, bangladesh, the prime minister did not respond. the rap referred us to the ministry of home affairs, which cited their own investigation and denied all allegations as baseless and until the bound with the scotland keeps denying that these abuses the record. it is, these testimonies once again, show them, though they need to stop, deny, as that holy dakota was at the counter begging cellphone bangladesh. i shall, eagle shows us the glasses her husband wore when he was killed. she received them with his body. since then she says, rap officers have pressured herd her family to remain silent on air desk. he said, just one thing. he said, your husband has died and you could die at any moment to the body. but i shall begum once a proper investigation. she says she will continue to speak up and to those who

killed her husband are held to the count and we are joined now here in the studio by dw investigations, journalists forget to showcase. we saw i should, begum, there she's demanding an investigation. is he likely to get it? it's very hard to say because it depends on the willingness of the bangladesh government to help their security forces accountable. let's take the case of our cromwell hack, because we have been looking into it very deeply. the original police report states that a chrome or hack horse killed in a shoot out between drug dealers to refute that, i begun released the recording. we have heard in the report ad to and which obviously documents are the killing and also the cover up afterwards. after that release of the recording at the local authorities said they would have a proper investigation into this, and this investigation is going on. we could acquire documents, ev,

judge's judicial documents from january, 20 or 23. and they still said that acrimony hack was killed in the crossfire shooting. and what's striking about it is that, or this recording is not part of this report. so that seems to be a clear indication that are both warranties don't do proper investigations. but that is exactly what the home into so told us when we confronted him with a 31 questions based on our findings and, and he said, and i quote that the ministry duly investigates, each incident by an independent mega strip. but then the question of mine's, why is the recording not part of the investigation? how did you verify these 2 whistleblowers accounts? this was very hard to kiss and not an easy task because as the vessel blows told us

. all things orders for this sort of special operations are, are getting verbally and there is nothing in writing not to have a paper tray. so 1st of all, we are cross checked the testimonies of the 2 whistle doors in terms of locations, a chain of command, per se, people involved. and then we corroborated those testimonies with police reports with post mortons. we could collect from alleged victims was data of human rights organizations, which i had collected with jewel occasion. so we, we had a, had a lot of tools and just to give you an example, both whistleblowers told us about these sort of killing competition. so what, what happened was that each a unit got points for these sort of special operations. and like x, are you just

a killings like actions and at the end of each month, each a unit was a who, who got most of the points got a got a got awarded. and that led to, to a situation where commanders tried in the end of the months to, to, to have the sort of special operations. and we could tell that we then cross check that was data of human rights organizations of more than $700.00 alleged crossfire killings. and they really showed this trend bed in the last 3rd of the month, the number of these killing spiked and the last 3 days of the month were indeed the most deadliest. do we know why the whistle blowers decided to speak out? now? i mean of is obviously reasons i, i can't share how we contacted them and i can't share any personal information about them. what i can say is that they both have served as rob commanders in several units recently. and why did they talk to us?

i, i think one of the reasons is guilt, but the 2nd they both made it very clear. they wanted to stop. they wanted that, rob can't commit any more. this crave human rights violations. and one a whistleblower said it's, it's like bangladesh shouldn't have such a force doing these are horrible things that he said, even if he would be sanctions he would pay that prize if yeah, in the end, rub is, is, is stopped to do or commit all these human rights violations, the rob, the rapid action battalion. um, it was long funded. we have to say and trained by the u. s. government and other governments. were they aware of these allegations of human rights violations? yes, absolutely. and from the very beginning,

shortly after the rob was found in human rights organizations came up with these accusations. and we know from cable from the vicki leaks there from to 2029 and that the u. s. government was aware and, but they considered the rab as an important ally in their fight against terrorism in bangladesh and also selves, asia, and this is something a spokesperson of the bangladesh embassy also confirm to us. according to them, they stop the funding and the support of the wrap in 2018 when the human rights violations became too apparent. and in december 2021, they impose sanctions on the rap on, on the rab as a whole and also on 7 high ranking members. and this for was and for, for the people we spoke in bangladesh was like a huge saying, m one woman whose brother had been abducted by by rab 10 years ago. said it was

like a light at the end of the tunnel. but still, the rab is committing crimes even though the number of alleged across fire killings has gone down. but this year is election year in bangladesh and many fear that the number of the sort of human rights violations will spike again. forget to show come from d w investigation. thank you so much for joining us to share that reporting. we appreciate it. and the full documentary on the d. w. investigation is now available on youtube. you can watch it on the dw news channel . with her now to some other stories, russian authorities have confirmed the arrest of a woman suspect in connection with sunday's explosion at a st. petersburg cafe that killed a well known military blogger, the suspect, had previously been detained for taking part in anti war rallies. the explosive

device was reportedly hidden inside of a present given to loveland petoskey brush and state media. say that 32 people were wounded in the blast. oh yeah. this is the blogger flatland to tar aski. real name maxime full mean filming himself last year at the grand kremlin palace. he had been invited there to celebrate russia's annexation of ukraine's occupied regions. this defiant tirade moses went viral. we will beat every once he said, we will kill every one. we will rob every one who needs to be robbed, so everything will be the way we love you. while these kinds of videos made him wildly popular among pro war russian nationalists walker. and now, as these scenes suggest, a target to task, he was killed after a blast at this restaurant. he had been hosting an event, their meeting supporters and subscribers to his telegram channel. local media

reports the touristy had been presented with a figurine just minutes before the blast, and that the figurine was the source of the explosion. of doing this, figuring ahead of a minor and a helmet, they put it somewhere back though without a 2nd thought. and he carried on with his questions. then suddenly everything exploded and there was smoke. it was like a slow motion movie. it was sit on the back half of the whole, everyone started to run and we needed to ron. so we ran those from a near had blood all over them. of course, with adding further to the fog of uncertainty. the venue itself has closed links to wagner, mercenary group, bossy of guinea pig gozine. russia's state investigative committee has opened a murder investigation. it's a reminder of the unpredictable consequences of the war which to tar sky cheered so fervently. t w corresponded jenika. falco joins us now from riga,

where dw has been operating since it was banned from russia. jennifer, we understand that russian authorities have identified a lat least 2 suspects. what more can you tell us? well, yes, sarah. first, the russian law enforcement actually succeed, says suspected someone from the evangel frank corpse region, but they later retracted that statement. now they have arrested a st. petersburg citizen for the murder of let the end but basket. and her name is daddy at the up of a and according to russian law enforcement, they also suspect that her husband is involved in the explosion as well. according to russian media report, the apartment of the up of her husband was rated by russian police and russian law enforcement. and her mother and sister were detained and questioned. allegedly that yet the up of a wrote in a secret telegram channeled to her friend that he would have preferred to die. and .