A Dhaka court has sentenced three people to life imprisonment over the 2015 murder of Italian aid worker Cesare Tavella, while acquitting four others, including a BNP leader.
On Thursday, Sheikh Samidul Islam, judge of the Dhaka 3rd Additional Metropolitan Sessions Court, delivered the verdict. The court also fined the three convicts Tk 50,000 each, with a provision for one more year of imprisonment if they fail to pay.
The convicts are Tamzid Ahmed alias Rubel, Rasel Chowdhury, and Minhajul Arefin alias Bhagne Rasel. Those acquitted are BNP leader MA Qaium, his brother Abdul Motin, Sakhawat Hossain, and Sohel.
Cesare Tavella, 50, an official of the Netherlands-based global development agency ICCO, was shot dead by motorcycle-borne attackers while jogging in Dhaka’s Gulshan diplomatic zone on 28 September 2015.
The following year, on 25 October 2016, charges were framed against MA Qaium, his brother Matin, and five others over Tavella’s murder.
Prosecutors had alleged the killing was meant to destabilise the country and create panic among foreigners, but four of the accused have now been cleared of all charges.