10 get death pelty for plotting assassition of Hasi

Dhaka, Aug 20: A tribul here in Bangladesh on Sunday awarded death pelty to 10 people for planting a bomb in 2000 to assassite then opposition leader and now Prime Minister Sheikh Hasi.

Dhaka’s Special Trial Tribul Judge Momtaz Begum gave the order in the presence of several accused from the banned Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HUJI), which has been accused of planting a 76-kg bomb, Xinhua news agency reported. The judge also sentenced one person to life imprisonment and nine others to 20 years in jail. Subject to confirmation of the apex court, the judge said the death row convicts would be executed by firing squad. The bomb was found when a stage was being set up at a college ground in Gopalganj district on July 21, 2000 where Hasi was to address an election campaign rally the next day. Of the 25 accused, HUJI chief Mufti Hann was executed for the 2004 grede attack on then British High Commissioner to Bangladesh. Defence lawyer Faruk Ahammad told reporters that eight accused were currently behind the bars, one had got bail while 15 others were fugitives.

Hann was a key suspect in the plotting to assassite Hasi and blow up courts, secular institutions as well as shrines and churches. He came in the limelight after the militant group announced at a public rally of Islamists in 1999 to establish a Taliban like government in Bangladesh by 2000. Hann, arrested in August 2005 and hanged in April this year, was also the mastermind of the tionwide bombings on August 17, 2005. (IANS)