DHAKA, July 31: Four militants were charged by a court in northeastern Bangladesh on Tuesday in connection with a 2004 grenade attack on the British ambassador that left three dead and scores injured, police said.

The trial of the four, including the leader of banned militant group Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami, Mufti Abdul Hannan, will start on Aug 14, police sub-inspector Abdul Majid said.

The court in the northeastern town of Sylhet charged the four with murder, use of explosives and masterminding the attack against British High Commissioner to Bangladesh Anwar Choudhury, he said.

“The court filed the charges today and set August 14 as the starting date of the hearing of witnesses. For faster judgement, the case is likely to be shifted to speedy trial court,” he said, adding they face death penalties if convicted.

Choudhury, who is still Britain’s ambassador to Dhaka, was slightly injured in the attack in Sylhet while three people died and at least 50 were injured.

Police said the attack was “to avenge the deaths of Muslims in Iraq and across the world by America and Britain.” The Bangladeshi-born diplomat, who moved to Britain as a child, was on his first return visit to his home district after taking up his appointment in May 2004.A special police investigation team in September 2006 arrested Mohammed Shahedul Alam and Mohammed Delwar Hossen, who confessed to carrying out the attack on the orders of Hannan.

Hannan, a veteran of the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, had been arrested earlier in connection with an alleged role in a plot to blow up former prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed in 2000.—AFP