DHAKA: A Dhaka court has sentenced 10 people to death over a plot to kill Sheikh Hasina in 2000, when she first became the Prime Minister after over two decades of the party’s bloody ouster from power.

The Speedy Trial Tribunal- 2 of Dhaka also sentenced nine people to 20 years in prison over explosives charges under the verdict delivered on Sunday .

Of the 25 accused in the two cases filed over an attempted murder and explosives, Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami chief Mufti Abdul Hannan has already been executed in another case. Hannan was hanged over the grenade attack on former British envoy Anwar Choudhury in Sylhet.

The tribunal sentenced nine people to 20 years imprisonment and fined them Tk20,000 each in an explosive case filed over the incident.

The court said the convicted can be executed either by hanging or by firing squad as per the directives of the High Court. The court also sentenced one to life imprisonment and three others to 14 years jail in the attempted murder case. It acquitted 10 others from the charge.

Ms. Hasina, on her first term as Prime Minister, was scheduled to address an election rally in western Gopalgonj district, when police found two 76-kg bombs on July 20 of 2000 near the rally venue . The bombs were recovered while a stage for the rally was being set up in Kotalipara, the electoral constituency of the Awami League chief.

Ms. Hasina, then the opposition leader in parliament, survived another assassination plot on August 21, 2004, when 23 party leaders and workers were killed and dozens badly injured at a grenade attack on her rally in Dhaka . She survived miraculously with her hearing organs badly damaged. The case is yet to be solved by the court.

One of the key suppliers of grenades which were used to kill Ms. Hasina in broad day light was supplied by a militant leader Maulana Tajuddin, who fled the country and is staying in South Africa. The government is trying to conclude a treaty with South Africa to expedite Maulana’s extradition. However the process of extradition may face complications as South African law does not support the death penalty.