The Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty handed down to a member of banned militant outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) for carrying out a suicide bomb attack that killed two judges in Jhalakathi in 2005.
A five-member Appellate Division panel headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha gave the verdict, rejecting the review plea filed by Asadul Islam on Sunday morning.
Senior assistant judges Jagannath Pandey and Sohel Ahmed were killed in the suicide attack on November 14, 2005. The Appellate Division had upheld death sentence of seven JMB leaders, including its chief Abdur Rahman, second-in-command Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai and Asadul, in the case. The death sentences of all the militants but Asadul were executed in 2007. Asadul was arrested the same year and has remained in jail. He filed the review petition against the apex court verdict this year.