DHAKA, Bangladesh, Jan. 16 (UPI) — A Bangladesh court Monday sentenced 26 people, including three officers from an elite police unit and a former city official, to death for the murder of seven political rivals in 2014.
“They shall be hanged by the neck until they are dead,” Narayanganj’s District and Sessions Judge Sayed Enayet Hossain said during court.
The nation’s High Court still must approve the death verdicts.
Former Narayanganj councillor Nur Hossain and former Bangladesh Army Lt. Col Tarek Sayeed, son-in-law of a cabinet minister of the government, were among those sentenced to death.
Sayeed and two other lower-ranking officers were serving in the Rapid Action Battalion in Narayanganj during the murders.
Hossain was extradited last week from India.
Twelve people found guilty were convicted in absentia. Also, nine others received prison sentences.
In April 2014, seven political rivals were abducted outside a cricket stadium in Narayanganj. Their bodies were found three days later floating in a river.
A lawyer who filmed the abductions was also seized with his driver. Their bodies also were found in the river.
RAB members have been linked to hundreds of killings in recent years.
