Bangladesh arrests suspect in killing of US blogger

Bangladeshi security officials arrested a suspect yesterday over the killing of an American writer Avijit Roy, a prominent critic of extremist Islam, was hacked to death last week as he walked with his wife in Dhaka.

The arrest of Farabi Shafiur Rahman came four days after attackers wielding meat cleavers killed Roy, an outspoken atheist and critic of the intertwining of religion and politics, on a crowded footpath in the capital, said Mufti Mahmud Khan, a spokesman for the anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion.

Roy, a Bangladesh-born engineer with US citizenship, was killed on a visit from Georgia in the United States to attend Dhaka’s main book fair. He and his wife, Rafida Ahmed, were attacked after leaving the fair.