| That'll make some nice film for the Bangla Evening News... |
DHAKA (Reuters) - A Bangladesh court on Monday sentenced seven top Islamist militants to death for killing two judges in a bomb attack in southern Jhalakati town in November last year. "They will be hanged until death," Judge Reza Tarik Ahmed said in his verdict. The seven included chiefs of two outlawed groups -- Shayek Abdur Rahman of Jamaat-ul Mujahideen and Siddikul Islam Bangla Bhai of Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh."I pronounce this highest penalty as involvement of the accused has been proved beyond doubt," the judge said in a courtroom packed with lawyers and security officers, witnesses said.
All but one of the convicts are in custody, police said. The other one is on the run and was tried in his absence. Two judges were killed when a bomb was thrown at a vehicle carrying them to a court in Jhalakati, 300 km (187 miles) south of the capital Dhaka, on November 14, 2005. The outlawed groups, trying to turn Muslim dominated Bangladesh into a sharia-based Islamic country, killed at least 30 people and wounded around 150 in a spate of countrywide bomb attacks between August and December last year.