B’desh court upholds death to Islamists for attack on UK envoy

Dhaka, February 11

A Bangladeshi court on Thursday upheld the death penalty against three members of an outlawed Islamist militant group and life sentences for two others for a 2004 failed assassination attempt on the then Bangladeshi-origin British envoy here that left three persons dead.

“The (lower court) verdict is upheld,” presiding judge of a two-member high court Bench Enayetur Rahman said, confirming the death penalty for Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) chief Mufti Abdul Hannan and two other operatives of the banned outfit for their involvement in the May 21, 2004, grenade attack on Anwar Chowdhury, former British High Commissioner to Bangladesh.

According to the verdict two other HuJI operatives would serve life terms for their involvement in the attack which Chowdhury narrowly escaped with minor wounds.

Three policemen were killed and some 50 people wounded as HuJI operatives exploded grenades when Chowdhury, just weeks after he took up the post, was on a visit to a Sufi shrine in north-eastern Sylhet which is also his birthplace.

A speedy trial tribunal originally tried the case and gave its verdict in December, 2008, also sentencing HuJI leaders Sharif Shahedul Alam and Delwar Hossain alongside Hannan. — PTI