Aug 21 attack: HC to deliver verdict today

The High Court is set to deliver its verdict today on the death references and appeals related to the August 21 grenade attack cases.

The death references and appeals have been included in the cause list of the HC bench of Justice AKM Asaduzzaman and Justice Syed Enayet Hossain.

On November 21, the bench kept the death references (trial court documents for confirmation of death sentences), and the appeals, filed by the convicted accused in the cases, as curia advisari vult (meaning the verdict will be delivered any day), after it concluded hearing on those matters.

The cases were filed following a grenade attack on an Awami League rally at Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka that claimed 24 lives and left about 300 injured.

Then opposition leader Sheikh Hasina, who later ran the country for 15 years as prime minister and was forced to resign and flee on August 5 this year following a mass uprising, narrowly escaped the attack on August 21, 2004.

A Dhaka court on October 10, 2018, sentenced 19 people, including former BNP state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar to death in the two cases filed in connection with the grenade attacks.

Nineteen others including BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman, now in London, were given life imprisonment and 11were handed different terms in prison.

Eighteen of the convicted accused are absconding and 31 are in jail.