Bangladesh police arrest key suspect over murder of LGBT magazine editor

The Bangladeshi police said on Sunday they have arrested a key suspect in connection with the murders of an editor and his friend, for which a "Bangladesh branch" of al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent claimed responsibility.

"The suspect, Shariful Islam Shihab, was detained from a western Bangladesh district early on Sunday," Deputy Inspector General of the Bangladesh Police, Monirul Islam, told reporters.

Islam could not tell immediately whether Shihab is one of the five killers who were captured by a closed-circuit camera while they were fleeing the crime scene.

The footage from the camera at a nearby building showed five men running in an alley.

But Islam confirmed the his (Shihab) involvement in the murders.

"We're question him to have further details and nab all the killers," said Islam, also head of the police Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit.

At least five machete-wielding assailants forcibly entered the house of Xulhaz Mannan who used to edit "Rupban," Bangladesh's first magazine for the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community, on April 25 in central Dhaka's Kalabagan area.

The assailants stabbed the USAID local staff Mannan and his friend Tonoy Fahim indiscriminately, leaving them dead on the spot.

During the primary interrogation, Islam said the arrested admitted that Mannan, who previously worked as a protocol officer in the U.S. embassy in Dhaka, and his friend were killed for their alleged anti-Islamic activities.

A number of secularist writers, bloggers and publishers in Bangladesh have been killed or seriously injured in attacks perpetrated by Islamist extremists since 2013. Endit