Dhaka
A Bangladesh court jailed 50 opposition activists on Thursday for up to 10 years for an attack on the current prime minister’s motorcade nearly two decades ago, a prosecutor said.
Among the defendants was a former member of parliament for the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which was in power at the time of the attack.
In 2002, a motorcade accompanying Sheikh Hasina, who was then the opposition leader for Awami League, was attacked with rocks, batons and machetes, prosecutors said.
“Three men including the ex-MP were given 10 years in jail and the rest got various jail terms from four and a half years,” prosecutor Shaheen Mirdha told AFP, after the sentences were delivered by a district court in the southern city of Satkhira.
Twelve of the convicts are currently on the run. The prosecutor said the attack was one of many assassination attempts on Hasina, who was unhurt.—APP
