Bangladesh’s High Court on Tuesday upheld a trial court verdict sentencing to death 15 people including three army officers and a gangster, who had fled to India after the gruesome killing of seven people three years ago.

The abducting and killing of seven people, including councillor Nazrul Islam and lawyer Chandan Kumar Sarkar, in suburban port town of Narayanganj shocked the nation.

“The High Court upheld the death sentence of 15 and commuted death penalties of 11 others to life imprisonment while the trial court had handed down death penalties to 26 accused,” a spokesman of the attorney general’s office said.

The judgement awarded death penalty to two sacked military and a navy officers, a gangster and 11 ex-servicemen posted in elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).

The three officers, a Lieutenant Colonel, a Major and a Lieutenant Commander of navy were also serving the RAB at the time of the gruesome simultaneous murders in 2014.

A two-judge bench comprising Justices Bhabani Prasad Singha and Mustafa Zaman Islam delivered the entire verdict that took hours, contrary to normal practices when the court pronounces the operative or abridged part of the judgment.

The three officers were found to be bribed to assassinate the city councillor and six others. The councillor, the lawyer and five others were abducted on April 27, 2014 from the port town and their nearly decomposed bodies were retrieved later.

According to the proceedings, a key accused of the case gangster Nur Hossain, himself a city councillor, had bribed the RAB officials to eliminate councilor Nazrul Islam in exchange of Taka 6 crore.

Soon after the murder Hossain fled to India as he was found to be the mastermind of the plot but Indian police eventually tracked him down in West Bengal and deported to Bangladesh in November 2015.

Investigations revealed 23 RAB personnel, including an army lieutenant colonel and two navy officers, were involved in abduction and killing of the seven people.

Sacked Lt Col Tarek Sayeed, the son-in-law of a cabinet minister, was the senior most of the three officers who was serving as the RAB commander in Narayanganj at the time of incident. The two others — Major Arif Hossain and Lt commander MM Rana — were serving under his command.

The officers were immediately sacked on orders of their superior authorities while police arrested them.