Bangladesh jails high-profile Islamist leader

Dhaka: A Bangladesh court Thursday jailed a senior Islamist militant for more than seven years for leading an extremist group blamed for a series of high-profile attacks, including one that left 18 foreigners dead.

A special court handed down a seven-year sentence against Maolana Saidur Rahman, described by police as the ringleader of Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), amid heavy security in the capital Dhaka.

"He was sentenced to seven years in jail for abusing the Muslim`s holy book of Koran, and misinterpreting its text to incite them (followers) against the country," prosecutor Jahangir Hossain told AFP.

He was also handed an additional six-month term for a related offence.

Two of Rahman`s associates were also given seven years in absentia on the same charges, Hossain said.

Rahman was arrested in Dhaka in 2010 in possession of bomb-making materials, firearms and jihadist literature.

Prosecutors told the court Rahman took over leadership of JMB after its previous leader, Shaikh Abdur Rahman, was executed in 2007.

Police accused Rahhman of spearheading a number of attacks against religious minorities, secular activists and foreigners in recent years, and recruiting young men to commit the atrocities.

In the deadliest of these attacks, five gunmen stormed an upscale Dhaka cafe in July last year, shooting and hacking to death 22 people including 18 foreigners.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, but police and the government blamed JMB for the carnage, discounting suggestions that IS had a foothold in Bangladesh.

An estimated 70 extremists have been killed in a police crackdown since the cafe attack.

Last month Mufti Abdul Hannan, the leader of another Islamist extremist outfit, was executed for masterminding a grenade attack against the then British ambassador to Bangladesh at a sufi shrine in 2004.