Bangladesh militant ring leader faces imminent execution over attack on British diplomat

Bangladesh jail authorities have asked family members to meet the death row militant Mufti Abdul Hannan, raising speculation that the local banned militant outfit Harkat-ul- Jehad-al-Islami (HUJI) ringleader might be executed soon.

The jail authorities Tuesday afternoon asked the family members to meet Hannan, who along with two others were awarded death sentence over the deadly attack on a British diplomat.

Senior Superintendent of the Kashimpur High Security Prison Md Mizanur Rahman told journalists that Hannan has been kept at the Kashimpur jail in Gazipur on the outskirts of capital Dhaka along with another convict Sharif Shahedul Alam, whose family was also Tuesday asked to meet him.

Rahman said they are all ready to carry out the sentences. Hannan and two of his accomplices face imminent execution as the Bangladeshi president has turned down their clemency pleas.

The third death-row convict Delwar Hossain Ripon is also behind bars at a jail in the country's northeastern Sylhet city.

A three-member Appellate Division bench of the Bangladesh Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, last month dismissed the final review petition of the militants who are now behind the bar.

The convicts had conducted the grenade attack on Anwar Chowdhury on May 21, 2004 at a shrine of Muslim saint in the country's northeastern city of Sylhet, some 241 km northeast of capital Dhaka, where the Bangladesh-born British high commissioner came to offer prayer.

Three people were killed and over 100, including Anwar Chowdhury, were injured in the deadly attack. Mufti Hannan reportedly in a statement before a court in Dhaka in 2006 confessed to having supplied grenades for launching the attack. Endit