26 to hang for Bangladesh abductions and murders

Dhaka : A Bangladesh court sentenced 26 people, including three senior officers from the country's elite security force, to death Monday after convicting them of murdering seven people who were abducted outside a cricket stadium.

The bodies of the victims were found floating in a river in April 2014, three days after witnesses reported seeing them being bundled into an unmarked van outside the stadium in the central city of Narayanganj.

District and Sessions Judge Syed Enayet Hossain convicted all 35 accused in the case which has gripped Bangladesh, including 25 members of the elite Rapid Action Battalion force, lawyers said. Twenty-six were sentenced to death by hanging.