In one such interview, he told the Daily Star that the Al-Jazeera video was aired in 2021, so sanctions could have been imposed even then. Why now? Referring to that official visit to Washington, he said that although 9 NGOs had demanded that no events take place with them, all the scheduled events took place. Human rights groups had then raised questions about the events and many people were shocked.
Why the sanctions now? This question can be answered by US Defense Department and State Department officials. Could it be that such a big step was taken because Washington's expectations were not met during Donald Lu's visit? But it would not be unreasonable to speculate that they wanted to see whether the Bangladesh government investigates the allegations or not. Now they can say that since the Bangladesh government did not investigate despite the seriousness of the allegations, they were forced to take such a step.
Recall that when Al-Jazeera aired an investigative report titled 'All the Prime Minister's Men', several people in the government announced that they would sue the TV channel. Following the widespread controversy, General Aziz had said that after his retirement from service, he would hold a press conference on behalf of the family to clarify the matter. This never happened. In fact, Al-Jazeera won seven international investigative journalism awards for that report.
The statement about General Aziz reflects the US assessment of three issues about Bangladesh. According to him, the effectiveness of democratic institutions has been damaged, corruption and abuse of power have increased in government institutions, and the system of accountability for crime or tolerating the rule of law has become ineffective. And all this has happened through a person or persons who are powerful.