Bangladesh Man Held Over US Blogger's Murder

A Bangladeshi blogger who criticised atheism has been arrested in connection with the brutal murder of an American who wrote about religious intolerance.

Attackers armed with meat cleavers hacked Avijit Roy to death and left his wife seriously injured in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka last Thursday.

The police's elite Rapid Action Battalion unit named the suspect as Farabi Shafiur Rahman.

According to the authorities, he had threatened Roy in Facebook postings, writing: "Avijit Roy lives in America, so it's not possible to kill him right now.

"But he will be killed when he comes back."

Mr Roy, a Bangladesh-born engineer with US citizenship who lived in Atlanta, Georgia, was in Dhaka to attend a book fair.

He and his wife, Rafida Ahmed, were set upon after leaving the event.

Mr Roy, who was the founder of the Free Mind blog, wrote a series of books including the best-selling The Virus of the Faith.

Rahman was previously convicted of threatening an imam who performed funeral prayers for an atheist Bangladeshi blogger killed in 2013, authorities said.

In that case, he was released on bail after six months in jail.

The Bangladeshi government has accepted an FBI offer to help in the murder investigation, the country's foreign minister said.

Islamic extremism has made few inroads in Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation of 160 million people.

But the government has ordered a crackdown after a series of attacks in recent years blamed on militants.