Six Islamist extremists were sentenced to death on Tuesday in Bangladesh.

A special anti-terrorism court has tried these Ansar Al-Islam members for the murder of two gay rights defenders, prosecutor Golam Sarwar Khan said.

"We are happy with the verdict," he told reporters. 

This is the first time that a Bangladeshi court has followed up on violence against gay rights activists, when homosexuality is illegal in the predominantly Muslim country.

Security had been tightened all around the court before the verdict.

Murdered in an apartment

Xulhaz Mannan, editor of a magazine for the Bangladeshi gay community, and activist Mahbub Tonoy were murdered in a Dhaka apartment by attackers with machetes and guns in April 2016. 

Four of the six people sentenced to death were tried in absentia, while two other defendants were acquitted.

Nazrul Islam, one of the defense lawyers, warned that appeals would be filed.

“My clients are totally innocent.

They are not linked to these murders.

They were unfairly trapped, ”he said. 

Murder claimed by Al-Qaida

Al-Qaida in the Indian subcontinent claimed responsibility for the murder of the two activists for promoting “homosexuality”.

But following the murder complaint filed by Xulhaz Mannan's brother, police indicted eight members of the Bangladeshi group Ansar Al-Islam and were able to arrest only four.

Five of them had already been sentenced to death in February for the murder of a blogger and a publisher in 2015.

The government fighting against national radical movements

Roopbaan, Xulhaz Mannan's magazine, ran for two years before becoming a platform for LGBT rights in Bangladesh. His organization had scheduled a demonstration of homosexuals, "Rainbow Rally", in April 2016, but the police had not authorized it citing the risk of security disturbances. Xulhaz Mannan and Tonoy had received death threats from Islamist activists shortly before their murders. 

Three months later, Islamist extremists attacked a cafe in Dhaka where 22 people, mostly foreigners, were murdered.

The attackers had been shot down by army commandos.

This attack had been claimed by Daesh as well as the murders of intellectuals, bloggers, publishers, atheist writers committed between 2013 and 2016. The government blamed the national radical movements and launched a campaign of repression which left dozens of dead, gunned down by the security forces. 

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