DHAKA, April 16: A Bangladeshi court on Saturday sentenced 22 people to be hanged for murdering an opposition lawmaker, the highest number given the death penalty in a single case, prosecutors said.

Another six people were handed life sentences.

Ahsanullah Master, a popular lawmaker from the Awami League, was gunned down along with a colleague in May last year at a political rally at Tongi, some 25 kilometres from Dhaka.

“I sentence 22 to death and six to life imprisonment as the prosecution has (proved) them guilty of the murder of Ahsanullah Master, MP,” Judge Shahed Nooruddin said.

“Ahsanullah Master was a popular leader. The prosecution has proved undoubtedly that they planned and murdered the late leader,” the judge said.

Of the 22, six were members of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party, 10 of the Jatiya Party and four of Master’s own party, the Awami League.

“This is a record-setting verdict in Bangladesh as it marks the highest number of men being sentenced to death in a single case,” the special public prosecutor said.

About three years ago 16 people were sentenced to death for killing two youths in the capital’s Gandaria area.

Master’s eldest son, Zahid Hassan Russel, who won the parliamentary election in his father’s vacant seat, said his family was satisfied with the verdict. —AFP