Manama: Bangladesh’s Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty for a convict charged with the murder of Saudi embassy official Khalaf Al Ali.
A four-member bench of the Appellate Division, led by Chief Justice Syed Mahmoud Hussain, rejected the petition filed by the convict against the death penalty.
“Now, there is no bar towards executing the verdict against convict Saiful Islam Mamun,” Attorney General Mahbubey Alam was quoted as saying on Sunday by the United News of Bangladesh.
The High Court had sentenced Mamun to death and Mohammad Al Amin, Akbar Ali Lalu and Rafiqul Islam to life in prison for their role in the murder of the Saudi citizen.
Al Ali, 45, an official with the consular section of the embassy, was shot in the capital’s highly secured Gulshan diplomatic zone in front of his rented apartment at about 1am on March 5, 2012, the local authorities said. He died at a hospital at around 5pm.
Al Ali had worked in the Saudi embassy in Dhaka for two years after being posted in Azerbaijan for seven years and was scheduled to be moved to Jordan within months.
Two days after the killing, five suspects were charged with the murder, and on December 30, 2012, a Dhaka court sentenced the five accused to death.
However, the convicts appealed the sentenced, and the High Court in 2013 upheld the death sentence of Saiful Islam Mamun, but commuted the sentences of Mohammad Al Amin, Akbar Ali Lalu and Rafiqul Islam to life in prison and acquitted fugitive Selim Chowdhury.
The case reached the Supreme Court in 2014.
