Prison authorities in Bangladesh’s southern city of Khulna on Sunday executed a senior Islamist extremist whose banned group has been linked to the murder of foreign hostages, police said. Asadul Islam (42), a leader of the outlawed Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), was hanged for his role in a 2005 blast that killed two judges.
Bangladesh has blamed the JMB for the July 1 attack on an upmarket Dhaka café in which 22 people, mostly foreign hostages, were killed.
“He was hanged to death at 10:30 pm [1630 GMT] in Khulna jail,” said Khulna Police Commissioner Nibhas Chandra Majhi.
Islam, also known as Arif, was one of seven senior JMB officials, including founding leader Shaikh Abdur Rahman, sentenced to death for a bomb attack on a minibus that killed two lower court judges on November 14, 2005. Six of the men, including Rahman, were executed in March 2007 by a military-backed caretaker government as part of a nationwide crackdown on Islamist extremists.
Bangladesh has blamed the JMB for the July 1 attack on an upmarket Dhaka café in which 22 people, mostly foreign hostages, were killed.
“He was hanged to death at 10:30 pm [1630 GMT] in Khulna jail,” said Khulna Police Commissioner Nibhas Chandra Majhi.
Islam, also known as Arif, was one of seven senior JMB officials, including founding leader Shaikh Abdur Rahman, sentenced to death for a bomb attack on a minibus that killed two lower court judges on November 14, 2005. Six of the men, including Rahman, were executed in March 2007 by a military-backed caretaker government as part of a nationwide crackdown on Islamist extremists.