HC upholds death for 3 Huji men

The High Court yesterday upheld death penalty of three Huji members, including its chief Mufti Abdul Hannan, and life imprisonment of two others over the 2004 grenade attack on the then UK envoy in Bangladesh.

The two other condemned operatives of the outlawed militant outfit are Sharif Shahedul Alam Bipul and Delwar Hossain alias Ripon.

The court also upheld the life imprisonment of Muhibullah alias Muhibur Rahman alias Ovi and Mufti Main Uddin alias Abu Zandal, also Huji members.

Former UK high commissioner to Bangladesh Anwar Choudhury along with around 70 others was hurt and three were killed in the attack at the shrine of Hazrat Shahjalal (RA) in Sylhet.

The Bangladesh-born envoy, barely 18 days into his new assignment, suffered minor leg injuries in the grenade attack after Juma prayers.

Yesterday, the HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Amir Hossain handed down the verdict after accepting the death reference of the case and dismissing the appeals filed by the convicts seeking acquittal of the charges.

The grounds, on which the HC delivered the verdict, could not be known as its full text was not released yesterday.

After receiving the full HC judgment, the convicts will have 30 days to appeal against it before the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, according to Deputy Attorney General Shaikh AKM Moniruzzaman Kabir.

If they did not do so, there would be no legal bar to executing the sentences, he told journalists after the HC verdict.

No counsels of the convicts were present in the courtroom when the HC judgment was handed down.

On December 23, 2008, the Sylhet Divisional Speedy Trial Tribunal sentenced Mufti Hannan, Bipul and Ripon to death, and Ovi and Abu Zandal to life imprisonment for the grenade attack and the killings.

All five convicts, who are now in jail, filed separate appeals with the HC in 2009, seeking acquittal.