5 to hang for Saudi diplomat’s murder

A special tribunal in Dhaka has sentenced to death five Bangladeshi men for the killing of a Saudi diplomat in March.
Judge Mohammad Motahar Hossain of the fast-track court issued the verdict against the five men who shot Khalaf bin Mohammed Salem Al-Ali while trying to rob him, Bangladesh Embassy said here yesterday.
“Four of the convicts were present when the judge gave the verdict,” said deputy commissioner of police Anisur Rahman, adding that the fifth had evaded arrest and was sentenced in absentia.
The convicts are Al Amin, Khokun, Lalu, Mamoon and Seleem. The death sentence on Seleem will be effective as soon as he is arrested, said Bangladesh Ambassador Mohammed Shahidul Islam.
“After the murder, my government launched a countrywide search for the criminals,” Islam said. “The whole country feels really sorry for what had happened to a diplomat from a brotherly country,” the envoy said.
Al-Ali, second secretary at the Saudi Embassy, was shot at around 2 a.m. while he was walking near his home in Dhaka.
Police found Al-Ali’s body at an intersection just two buildings away from his residence and rushed him to hospital where he died three hours later.