December 24, 2008	Wednesday	Zilhaj 25, 1429

DHAKA, Dec 23: A Bangladesh court sentenced three members of an outlawed Islamic group to death on Tuesday for a deadly bomb attack on a former British envoy four-and-a-half years ago.

The court also sentenced two other militants of the Muslim extremist group, Harkatul Jihad, to life imprisonment for the attempt to kill Anwar Choudhury, then British High Commissioner to Bangladesh, a court registrar said.

Three people were killed and 50 others, including Choudhury, wounded when a grenade was hurled at him in 2004, at a Muslim shrine in Sylhet, about 300km northeast of Dhaka.

Choudhury was making a visit to his ancestral village.

Among the militants sentenced to death by hanging was Mufti Hannan, operations commander of Harkatul Jihad, Bangladesh.

Mufti is also being prosecuted for attempting to kill former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

Mufti and other militants were arrested in 2006, the year after the country was rocked by a wave of bombings blamed on several Islamic groups seeking to turn the country into a shariat-based Islamic state.—Reuters