Staff Correspondent:

A Dhaka court has sentenced three people to life imprisonment in the 2015 murder case of Italian citizen Cesare Tavella, a project manager at the Netherlands-based international NGO ICCO Cooperation.

Meanwhile, four others, including BNP leader MA Kayum and his brother, were acquitted due to a lack of evidence.

The verdict was delivered on Thursday (July 3) by Judge Sheikh Shamidul Islam of Dhaka’s Third Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court.

Tavella, 50, was shot dead by motorcycle-riding assailants while jogging in Dhaka’s Gulshan on 28 September 2015.

The murder marked the beginning of a series of attacks in Bangladesh that were claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

However, the previous government rejected the claims, maintaining that ISIL had no foothold in the country. Instead, officials alleged that the killings were part of a broader conspiracy to destabilise the nation, pointing fingers at local extremist groups and the then main opposition party BNP.

Seven people, including Kayum, were later charged in the case. Kayum denied the allegations, calling them politically motivated.