Bangladesh jails another 111 border guards for mutiny

Bangladeshi special court jailed 111 border guards for up to seven years Tuesday for their roles in a bloody 2009 mutiny, which left 74 people dead, a state prosecutor said.

Scores of senior army officers were killed in the 33-hour uprising that began when soldiers at the Bangladeshi Rifles (BDR) headquarters in Dhaka went on a killing spree, later dumping the bodies in sewers and shallow graves.

The mutiny swiftly spread to BDR posts outside Dhaka and across the country, with thousands of guards taking up arms against their commanding officers in the worst military rebellion in Bangladesh's history.

The 111 soldiers were convicted by a special court of participating in the mutiny at the BDR headquarters -- a military cantonment at the heart of the Bangladesh capital -- state prosecutor Monjur Alam said.

"Forty-three were jailed for the maximum seven years. Twenty were jailed for five years and the rest minimum two years and six months," he told AFP.

The special courts -- which were set up by the military to try mutineers -- have sentenced more than 700 soldiers, and have thousands more cases pending, Alam added.

A BDR spokesman, Mohsin Reza, said that a total of 721 soldiers have now been sentenced to jail on charges of participating in the mutiny. Another 5,014 have been charged and are awaiting trial in the special courts.

Sentences handed out by the special courts, which do not allow defendants to have lawyers, cannot be appealed.

Soldiers accused of more serious offences -- including murder, looting and arson -- are being tried separately in Bangladesh's civilian courts.

The next hearing in the civilian courts, in which more than 800 BDR soldiers have been charged, has been set for Thursday, February 3.

The BDR has changed its name to the Bangladesh Border Guards in an effort to distance itself from its bloody recent history.