DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) – A special tribunal in Bangladesh’s capital on Wednesday sentenced eight Islamic militants to death for the 2015 murder of a publisher of books on secularism and atheism.
Judge Majibur Rahman, special tribunal against terrorism, announced the verdict in a packed courtroom in the presence of six accused. Two others, including the ousted military official Sayed Ziaul Haque Zia, remain at large.
The judge had earlier issued an arrest warrant for them. The prosecutor said they belonged to the banned military equipment Ansar al Islam.
In October 2015, suspected militant Faisal Abedin Deepan of the Jagriti Prokashoni publishing house was hacked to death in a market near Dhaka University. On the same day, another publisher, Ahmed Rashid Tutul, also survived an almost simultaneous attack in Dhaka.
Both victims were publishers of Bangladeshi-American author and blogger Avijit Roy, who was also hacked to death in February 2015 when he returned from an annual book fair in Dhaka.
The judge said prosecutors could prove the charges against all eight accused. He said they were taking action against freethinkers with a larger goal of destabilizing the country.
Razia Rahman, Deepan’s wife, expressed satisfaction with the verdict. The defense said they would appeal.
Tutul, who was seriously injured, flew to Nepal and eventually took asylum with his family in Norway.
‘Yes, I just heard the news about the verdict. I wish we would one day know who this former army officer Zia is. “Why he mastered the attack and how he was treated,” Tutul told The Associated Press in a message from Norway. “I think Bangladesh will take the radical forces seriously and get rid of them.”
In 2015, several atheists, bloggers and foreigners were killed by suspected militants. A Dhaka bombing on October 24, 2015, targeting a minority of Shiite Muslims, killed a teenager and injured more than 100 people.
According to authorities, the network of militants broke into a massive crackdown after an attack on a cafe in Dhaka in 2016 in which 22 people, including 17 foreigners, were killed along with five attackers.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack and other attacks, but the Bangladeshi government said domestic groups were behind them and insisted that IS had no presence in the country.