DHAKA, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- A High Court Division Bench in Bangladesh has upheld death sentence for 15 in a sensational murder case of seven people.
The High Court division bench of Justice Bhabani Prasad Singha and Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam on Tuesday delivered the verdict commuting the death penalty of 11 others to life imprisonment.
In January this year a court in Bangladesh's central Narayangan district about 20 km from the capital Dhaka imposed death sentence on all the 26 accused in the sensational murder case.
Convicts' lawyers said their clients will file appeals with the Supreme Court against the death sentence.
According to case details, Narayanganj City Corporation's ex-Councillor Nur Hossain, believed to be the mastermind of the murder of seven people, and three former senior officer of Bangladesh's elite force Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) are among the 15 given the death penalty.
Twenty-three of the 26 accused including prime suspect Nur Hossain are now behind the bars.
The abduction and gruesome killings, which apparently shocked Bangladesh, sparked massive waves of protests in the country.
Nazrul Islam, a fellow councillor of Hossain, with three associates and his driver went missing on April 27, 2014.
Nazrul's lawyer Chandan Kumar Sarker who was following the car of Nazrul Islam, also went missing on the same day with his driver from the same place.
About a week later bodies of all the seven persons were seen floating to the Shitalakshya River on which the Narayanganj stands.
Nazrul's father-in-law Shahidul Islam alleged that RAB personnel abducted and killed Nazrul and his associates, who had a long-standing political business rivalry with Nur Hossain, who fled to India after the murders took place.
Nur Hossain was arrested in Kolkata, the capital of the Indian state West Bengal in June, 2015, and subsequently brought back to Bangladesh.
