Report: Bangladesh Executes 6 Militants

Bangladeshi security forces hold Islamic militant leader Siddiqul Islam after he was captured at his hideout in northern Mymensingh district, 110 kilometers (70 miles) from Dhaka, Bangladesh, in this March 6, 2006 file photo. Islam along with five other top Islamic militants convicted of killing two judges in a 2005 bomb attack were hanged Friday, March 30, 2007, a television station reported. The six members of the banned Islamic group Jumatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, which wants to introduce Islamic Sharia laws in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, had been sentenced to death for the Nov. 14, 2005 slayings in the southern town of Jhalakathi. (AP Photo/Jahangir Kabir Jewel, File) (Jahangir Kabir Jewel - AP)

DHAKA, Bangladesh -- Six top Islamic militants convicted of killing two judges in a 2005 bomb attack were hanged Friday, a television station reported.

The six members of the banned Islamic group Jumatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, which wants to introduce Islamic Sharia laws in this Muslim-majority nation, had been sentenced to death for the Nov. 14, 2005, slayings.

During their trial, the defendants said they targeted the courts because they are run by secular law.

The six men _ Shaikh Abdur Rahman, Siddiqul Islam, Abdul Awal and Khaled Saifullah, Ataur Rahman Sunny and Iftekhar Hasan Al-Mamun _ were hanged early Friday in four separate prisons in Bangladesh, private TV station Channel-i reported.

Their bodies were sent to their families, the report said, without providing details.

"The security forces brought my brother's body early in the morning. We are preparing for the funeral," said Atiqua Begum after receiving the body of her brother Shaikh Abdur Rahman early Friday.

"Allah will forgive him," she said as a few villagers and reporters gathered at the remote farming village of Charsigram in Rahman's home district of Jamalpur, 80 miles north of capital Dhaka.

Rahman, known as the supreme commander of the militants, was executed in a jail in Comilla town, 50 miles east of capital Dhaka, the TV report said.

The body of Siddiqul Islam, a deputy of Rahman, reached his village home in northern Bogra district before dawn Friday, local reporters said. Islam's body was received by his brother Rafiqul Islam, according to the reporters.

Early this month, Bangladesh's president Iajuddin Ahmed rejected appeals for clemency by the six men, paving the way for their execution. The Supreme Court turned down the militants' appeal against the death sentence in late November.

Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, has been blamed for a string of bombings across the nation that have killed 26 people and wounded dozens more since August 2005, police said.