the High Court, in Bangladesh...

the High Court, in Bangladesh, upheld a lower court verdict that awarded a woman and two others death penalty for killing Nabil Abdul Latif, a band artist and journalist of the English daily New Age in March 2004. The bench of justices Syed Muhammad Dastagir Husain and Mohammad Emdadul Haque passed the order after holding a hearing on the death reference petition. The convicts are victim's wife Farhana Sultana Kanak, and band artistes Nirzon Mostakin and Shahidul Islam Pappu. Judge A R Masud of Dhaka's Fourth Speedy Trial Tribunal had on Aug 22 2006 sentenced the three in the murder case in their absence. In the verdict, Kanak was indicted as the mastermind of the killing and the two others as the killers. According to the case details, Kanak developed an illicit affair with Nabil's friend Mostakin without his knowledge and plotted to kill her husband. On Mar 2 2004, as per Kanak's instruction, Mostakin and Pappu called Nabil out of his house at Siddeshwari, strangulated him and dumped the body at the Bamanpur Playground in Keraniganj. Later, the police recovered the body and a murder case was filed against the three with the Keraniganj Police Station the next day and they were arrested. Of them, Pappu and Kanak gave confessional statements to magistrates admitting their involvement in the crime. The trial court on Aug 22, 2006 awarded them death penalty when they were on the run. Later, the case was forwarded to the High Court for confirmation of the lower court judgment.