 Two separate courts in Bangladesh are reported to have sentenced 22 Islamic militants to death for carrying out bomb attacks across the country last year.
A court in the western city of Jhenidah condemned 21 militants in connection with serial bomb explosions on 17 August, the private ATN Bangla television network reported. Eighteen of the defendants were in court when the sentence was read, while another two remain fugitives.
| Kinda hard to hang 'em when you haven't caught 'em, isn't it? |
Lawyers said they planned to appeal the sentences.
In a separate case, a court in northeastern Sylhet city sentenced a man to death for hurling a homemade bomb outside the house of a judge, slightly injuring him, on 18 October.
| Dumbass. Who'd you think you were gonna be sentenced by in court? A plumber? |
The militants were sentenced for their part in a deadly wave of blasts that saw more than 400 bombs explode almost simultaneously across Bangladesh last year, officials said. The bombings, claimed by an outlawed Islamic militant group, killed three people and rocked a nation which had previously denied having a serious problem with extremism.
| 400 bombs, three people dead. What's wrong with that picture? |
| Went to the Hek School of Grenade Throwing, did they? |
Amirul Islam, administrative officer at the court said the accused were all members of the militant group Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
Babul Ansari, one of the condemned men, was employed as a security guard at the Bangladesh parliament at the time of the attacks, Motaleb Hossain, the court's prosecutor told AFP. Hossain said the case was the first successful prosecution in connection with the attacks in which small explosive devices were detonated in almost every town and city in the country. JMB leaflets were found at the blast sites calling for the imposition of strict Islamic law. |