A Bangladesh court on Monday sentenced 26 people, including a politician and three officials of an elite security battalion, to death in the grisly, politically motivated killings of seven people in 2014. Judge Sayed Enayet Hossain found the defendants guilty of abducting and killing the victims, including a senior official and a lawyer in the town of Narayanganj. Nine other defendants were sentenced to up to 17 years in jail. The area battalion chief, Lt. Col. Tarque Sayeed Mohammad, who was among those sentenced to death, is a son-in-law of a government minister. The defendants facing death also include an army major and a lieutenant commander.

Source: ABC News January 16, 2017 15:06 UTC