Abdur Rahman tried to escape as police closed in.
The Islamist leader jumped off a fifth-floor balcony as he fled police during a raid this month, then died in a hospital October 8 from injuries he sustained, a spokesman for Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion told CNN.
Investigators believe Rahman ordered the deadly terror attack at a cafe in Dhaka in July that left 21 hostages and two police officers dead after an 11-hour siege. But authorities have not yet determined the extent of Rahman’s involvement in the attack, battalion spokesman Maj. Gen. Farhad Hossain Mahmud said.
Rahman was the head of Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, a banned jihadist group that has pledged allegiance to ISIS and whose attacks have focused on religious minorities.
Authorities identified Rahman as the leader of the group through documents and letters seized from the location of the raid, Mahmud said.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the July attack, but officials in Bangladesh maintain the terror group has no presence in the country.