The former inspector of banani police Station in Dhaka and patron of the controversial e-commerce company e-Orange, Sheikh Sohel Rana, has been imprisoned in Albania for the past nine months. He has reportedly requested political asylum in the country.

Sohel Rana claims to be a relative of the former prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, who has been ousted. He claims he left the country for political reasons and faces the death penalty if he returns.

A Bangladesh police spokesman told the newspaper Prothom Alo that Sohel Rana is currently being held in an Albanian prison. “We have repeatedly sent letters to the National Central Bureau (NCB) of the Albanian police requesting his extradition, but we have not received any response,” he said.

In Dhaka, sohel Rana Is facing nine cases of money laundering, embezzlement and fraud.
His company e-Orange is accused of Embezzling 11 billion Taka (about $110 million) from clients.
The police have sent multiple requests for his repatriation to no avail.

Arrest and escape

After filing charges against him for extensive financial fraud through the e-Orange, Sohel Rana fled Bangladesh to India on September 2, 2021. The next day, he was arrested by the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) in Cooch Behar, West Bengal, while attempting to enter Nepal.

He was sentenced to two years in prison and fined 40,000 rupees for illegally entering India. After being released on bail on grounds of “health problems” by the Calcutta High Court in January last year, he disappeared again. Via Portugal, he ended up in Albania, where he was arrested on February 1.

According to his lawyer in Albania, Edon Mexi, under the European Convention on Human Rights, Albania cannot extradite a foreigner to a country where there is a risk of the death penalty being imposed.

Asylum application

During a tV broadcast on the albanian channel MCN TV six months ago, the case of Sohel Rana's arrest was presented. He allegedly claimed to have held a high-ranking position in the Bangladesh police and to be from Sheikh Hasina's family.

According to diaspora journalist Zulkernain Saer Khan, who had published a relevant post on Facebook, Rana took advantage of a provision in Albanian law that allows foreigners accused of homicide in their country of origin to apply for asylum in Albania.

In his application to the court, he falsely claimed that a murder case was pending against him at the Gulshan police station in Dhaka, related to the riots of last July. He argued that if he returned, he would be sentenced to death. However, Bangladeshi police officially replied to Albanian authorities that no such case existed and that Rana had fled the country since 2021.

Police sources in Dhaka believe that the inaction of the Albanian authorities is due to the fact that the legal process for his asylum application has not yet been completed.

E-Orange case

OR e-Orange was founded around 2020, during a boom in e-commerce in Bangladesh. Sohel Rana, then a police inspector in Banani, along with his wife Naznin Nahar, his sister Sonia Mehjabin, and his son-in-law Mashukur Rahman, created the platform with promises of discounts and deals. In practice, however, the goal was to cheat customers and embezzle huge sums of money.

When customers realized the fraud, a complaint was filed with Gulshan police station on August 18, 2021, for embezzlement of 11 billion taka. Since then, Sohel Rana's name has come to the fore, resulting in multiple prosecutions and suspension before he fled abroad.