Bangla court upholds death sentence of 139 BDR soldiers

The Bangladesh High Court on Monday upheld the death sentence of 139 and the life imprisonment of 146 convicted soldiers involved in a 2009 mutiny and their role in the massacre of 74 people, including 57 Army officers, in the country's biggest-ever criminal case.

The judgement comes after the court started delivering the verdict on Sunday in the death sentence of the total 152 convicted soldiers of the then Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) for the brutal killing at the border guards' headquarters here, reports PTI. "One thirty-nine will have to walk to gallows and 146 will be imprisoned for life," Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told a media briefing, quoting the over 1,000-page judgement delivered by a three-judge High Court bench. "The rebels staged the mutiny so no military officer could serve in BDR, so they killed the innocent (army) officers systematically. This is unprecedented," Alam said.

A key lawyer on the defence side Aminul Islam, however, called the judgement "unexpected" and "defiance of justice" as it mostly upheld the lower court verdict "which had been delivered in most cases without any evidence".

"I will advice my cleanest (convicts) to file appeals before the (apex) Appellate Division of the Supreme Court to get justice," he said. The judgement comes four years after a lower court in Dhaka handed down capital punishment to 152 and life term to 158 soldiers of the BDR. The bench on Sunday started reading out the entire judgement on the death sentence and appeal hearing of the trial of what is said to Bangladesh's biggest ever criminal case.

A Dhaka court had awarded death penalty to 152 jawans and non-commissioned officers of the BDR, which was renamed as the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), in November 2013.

The court had sentenced 158 to life imprisonment, 251 to imprisonments up to 10 years for the February 25-26, 2009 carnage, when 74 people, including 57 military officers serving in the BDR, were killed.