BANGLADESH. DEATH SENTENCE UPHELD FOR MILITANTS

a Bangladeshi court upheld the death sentence handed down three months previously against seven Islamist militants over the killing of two judges in a bomb attack in 2005. Among those ordered hanged were the leaders of two outlawed groups -- Shayek Abdur Rahman of Jamaat-ul Mujahideen and Siddikul Islam Bangla Bhai of Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh. All but one of the convicted men were in custody, police said. The other was on the run and was tried in absentia. The two judges were killed when a bomb was thrown at a vehicle carrying them to a court in Jhalakati, 300 km (190 miles) south of the capital Dhaka, last November. The outlawed groups, who have called for Islamic rule in mainly Muslim Bangladesh, killed at least 30 people and wounded around 150 in a spate of countrywide bomb attacks between August and December 2005. The victims also included lawyers, policemen and journalists.