Machete murderers of US blogger get death sentences in Bangladesh

A court in Bangladesh sentenced to death five members of an Islamist militant group on Tuesday for killing an American blogger critical of religious extremism six years ago, Reuters is reporting.

Avijit Roy, a US citizen of Bangladeshi origin, was hacked to death in Dhaka by machete-wielding assailants in February 2015 while returning home with his wife from a book fair. In the attack, his wife and fellow blogger Rafida Ahmed suffered gashes to her head and had a finger chopped off.

“Charges against them were proved beyond any doubt. The court gave them the highest punishment,” public prosecutor Golam Sarwar Khan said after the verdict, amid tight security at the Special Anti-Terrorism Tribunal in the capital, Dhaka.

The court also jailed another man for life in the attack, Khan said.

He said the six men belong to the al Qaeda-inspired domestic militant group Ansar Ullah Bangla Team, which police say is behind the murders of more than a dozen secular activists and bloggers.

Syed Ziaul Haq, an army major believed to be the leader of the group and who masterminded the killing, was tried in absentia and sentenced to death, Khan said.

Nazrul Islam, defence lawyer for the six men, said they would appeal against the sentences.

Muslim-majority Bangladesh saw a string of deadly attacks between 2013 and 2016 targeting bloggers, secular activists and religious minorities. The attacks were claimed by Islamic State or al Qaeda-aligned groups.

The most serious attack came in July 2016, when gunmen stormed a cafe in the diplomatic quarter of Dhaka and killed 22 people, most of them foreigners.

After the cafe siege, more than 100 suspected militants were killed by police and the army, and hundreds more were arrested as the government cracked down on Islamist groups to preserve the country’s image as a moderate Muslim nation.