BANGLADESH. GOVERNMENT TO BUILD PRISON FOR CONDEMNED AS DEATH-ROW NUMBERS ROCKET

Bangladesh would build a new jail for death-row inmates after a crackdown on violent crime doubled the number of condemned prisoners in three years, officials said. Since they were created in November 2002, nine fast-track courts known as Speedy Trial Tribunals had sentenced 326 people to hang taking the number of death-row prisoners to 675, Inspector General of Prisons Toufiq Alam told reporters.
"The high number of death sentences has caused overcrowding in jail cells used to hold condemned prisoners. Now five to six death-row prisoners share the same floor and same blanket in a single condemned cell," Alam said.
He said the increase had prompted plans for a new 1,000-cell high-security prison for death-row convicts and dangerous criminals at Kashimpur, 30 kilometres  north of Dhaka later in 2005.
Two regional jails in southern Chittagong and northeastern Sylhet would be used to house condemned prisoners in the interim, he said.