Bangladeshi court sentences 10 to death for plot to kill Premier Hasina

A court in Bangladesh has sentenced ten militants to death over a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is in her third term.

Prosecutor Shamsul Haq Badol said in the capital Dhaka on Sunday that the sentence was death by firing squad.

The defendants were convicted of planting a huge explosive near where Hasina had been scheduled to speak during her first term in 2000.

"The bomb was planted in an attempt to kill Sheikh Hasina, high-ranking leaders of the (ruling) Awami League party and dignitaries," media outlets quoted Badol as saying.

The prosecutor also stated that another large explosive was found three days later at a helipad where Hasina's helicopter was scheduled to land.

The 76-kilogram explosive was detected and defused. The incident sparked a manhunt for the perpetrators.

Police allege that the operation was led by Mufti Abdul Hannan, the late leader of an extremist group that perpetrated a string of attacks across Bangladesh in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Hannan was hanged in April for orchestrating a grenade attack meant to target Britain's envoy to Bangladesh in 2004. The ambassador sustained leg injuries.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Prosecutor Badol said Hannan had tried to kill Hasina in a separate grenade attack at a rally in Dhaka in August 2004, in which 22 people were killed. Hasina, who was the opposition leader at that time, suffered injuries to her ear.

Badol said the convicts in the latest case wanted to kill Hasina because "they said she was not a Muslim, and an agent of India, and Islam can be established (in Bangladesh) only by killing her."

Khandaker Abdul Mannan, another prosecutor, said those sentenced to death were also implicated in other fatal assaults, including a deadly bombing at a church and a festival.

Faruque Ahmed, a defense lawyer, said the defendants would appeal. "There are a lot of questions about this case. The defendants said they did not get justice.”

Hannan, a madrassa teacher who studied in India and Pakistan, fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan before returning home to Bangladesh, where he rose to prominence for a string of deadly attacks under his command.

Militant groups have stepped up deadly attacks across Bangladesh over the past few months. The groups are blamed for a series of deadly attacks, including a café siege in Dhaka last year, when 22 people, including 18 foreign hostages, were killed.

Since the bloody café attack in Dhaka, local security forces have been engaged in a massive crackdown on radical groups, killing nearly 50 suspected militants.

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