A Bangladesh court on Wednesday sentenced 19 people to death over a 2004 grenade attack on the current Prime Minister, although a top Opposition leader escaped with a life sentence.
The Opposition staged protests and slammed the sentences as “political vengeance”, as police went on high alert across the country, with a bus in the north allegedly fire-bombed.
The 2004 attack in Dhaka on a rally by Sheikh Hasina, at the time in the Opposition, left her injured and killed 20 people.
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Tarique Rahman, son of then-premier Khaleda Zia, was among the 49 people on trial. He was charged with criminal conspiracy and multiple counts of murder.
Mr. Rahman, 50, was however tried in absentia after he fled the country for London in 2008.
He now leads the main Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party from exile, after Ms. Zia was jailed in February for five years for corruption. Two former Ministers and two former heads of the country’s powerful intelligence agencies were among others handed the death sentence, said prosecutor Mosharraf Hossain.
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Meanwhile, Mr. Rahman’s lawyer Sanaullah Mia said the charges were politically motivated. He questioned the timing of the verdict, saying it was aimed at keeping Mr. Rahman out of polls expected for December.