Key suspect for 2016 Dhaka attack reportedly detained

May 22, 2019

New Delhi--A Japanese national suspected of playing a major role in a 2016 terror attack in Dhaka is being detained in Iraq, according to a Bangladeshi media report on Monday.

The Islamic State militant group is suspected of involvement in the attack in the Bangladeshi capital, in which 20 hostages including seven Japanese nationals were killed.

The suspect, Mohammad Saifullah Ozaki, a Japanese national who was associate professor at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, surrendered to a Kurdish military unit in eastern Syria in March and was transferred to Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq.

His Japanese wife and two children, who had been accompanying Ozaki, died in an air strike, according to the report.

For the Dhaka attack, Ozaki is suspected of acting as a liaison between extremists in Bangladesh and the Islamic State, raising funds and recruiting young Bangladeshis to the jihad group. Police had placed Ozaki on a wanted list.

Born in Bangladesh, Ozaki began studying in Japan in 2002. While teaching business at the western Japan university as associate professor, he was fired for being absent without notice in January 2016. He is believed to have gone to Syria around that time. Jiji Press