11 jailed for trying to kill Bangladesh PM

The Dhaka court also handed down life imprisonment to the accused for blasting bombs on the same day in 1989 at the house of Hasina. 

The court imposed a fine of 20,000 taka (USD 240) each on the convicts -- members of the now defunct Bangladesh Freedom Party (BFP) which was behind the killing of Bangladesh’s first president and the Father of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975, court officials and lawyers said. 

The BFP had toppled Bangladesh’s post independence Awami League government after killing Bangabandhu along with most of his family. 

“Eight of the convicts faced the trial in person and the rests including (Freedom party chief) and sacked lieutenant colonel Abdur Rashid are on the run,” said a prosecution lawyer of Dhaka Fourth Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court which tried the case. 

Rashid had previously been sentenced to death for the murder of Hasina’s father Bangabandhu.