Bangladeshi hanged for Saudi diplomat’s murder

The diplomat Khalaf Al-Ali worked at the Saudi embassy in Bangladesh when he was shot in 2012. (AFP)

• The man is believed to be the leader of the gang that tried to rob the Saudi diplomat
• The Saudi diplomat was shot in front of his flat in Dhaka

DHAKA: A Bangladeshi man was hanged in a jail outside Dhaka over the murder of a Saudi diplomat in 2012, an official said Monday.
Khalaf Al-Ali, 45, who worked in the consular section of the Saudi Arabian embassy, was shot in the capital’s diplomatic zone in front of his rented apartment. He later died in hospital.
Police at that time said 30-year-old Saiful Islam, who was hanged on Sunday, led the gang who tried to rob the diplomat.
“He was executed in accordance with a court order,” prison official Shahjahan Ahmed told AFP.
The Supreme Court in August upheld Islam’s death sentence. He was originally sentenced to death in 2013 by a trial court which described him as the main perpetrator of the killing.
More than two million Bangladeshis are working in Saudi Arabia, which is a key ally of the South Asian country and a major donor.
Bangladesh regularly executes death row convicts despite criticism from human rights groups.
In recent years at least five top extremist leaders, who have been convicted of war crimes, and nearly a dozen militants were executed — all by hanging — in high security prisons.