DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) – A special court in the Bangladeshi capital on Wednesday sentenced eight Islamic militants to death for the 2015 murder of a book publisher on secularism and atheism.
Judge Majibur Rahman of the Special Anti-Terrorism Court announced the verdicts in a packed court in the presence of six defendants. Two others, including the dismissed military officer Sayed Ziaul Haque Zia, remain at large.
The judge had already issued arrest warrants for them. The prosecution said they belonged to the banned militant organization Ansar al Islam.
In October 2015, alleged militants hacked to death Faisal Abedin Deepan, from publisher Jagriti Prokashoni, in a market near Dhaka University. On the same day, another editor, Ahmed Rashid Tutul, survived an almost simultaneous attack on Dhaka as well.
Both victims were publishers of Bangladeshi American writer and blogger Avijit Roy, who was also hacked to death in February 2015 on his way back from an annual book fair in Dhaka.
The judge said prosecutors were able to prove the charges against all eight defendants. He said that they acted against free thinkers with the main aim of destabilizing the country.
Razia Rahman, Deepan’s wife, expressed satisfaction with the verdict. The defense said it would appeal.
Tutul, seriously injured, flew to Nepal and ended up taking refuge in Norway with his family.
“Yes, I just heard the news about the verdict. I wish one day we would know who this former Zia army officer is. Why he planned the attack and how it was sponsored, ”Tutul told The Associated Press in a message from Norway. “I think Bangladesh will take radical forces seriously and get rid of them.”
In 2015, several atheists, bloggers and foreigners were killed by suspected militants. A bomb attack in Dhaka on October 24, 2015, directed at a Shiite minority, killed a teenager and injured more than 100 people.
Authorities say the group broke the network of militants in a massive crackdown after an attack on a coffee shop in Dhaka in 2016, in which 22 people, including 17 foreigners, died along with five attackers.
The Islamic State group has taken responsibility for this and other attacks, but the Bangladeshi government said domestic groups were behind them and insisted ISIS has no presence in the country.