B'desh charges Islamists for attack on UK envoy

DHAKA, June 9 (Reuters) Bangladesh police have completed investigations and framed charges against four Islamists for trying to kill British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury in a grenade attack three years ago, police said today.

Choudhury, a British citizen of Bangladeshi origin, was visiting a Muslim shrine in the northeastern town of Sylhet on May 21, 2004, when the grenade blast killed three people and wounded about 50, including the envoy.

Bangladeshi police and Scotland Yard detectives investigated the incident but failed to make headway. Lately, after an army-backed interim government took charge in Bangladesh in January, the investigation was resumed.

''Now the probe is complete and charges have been framed against four Islamist militants, including Mufti Abdul Hannan, chief of the outlawed Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami group,'' said a police officer in Sylhet, 350 km from Dhaka.

He said the charges would be formally submitted to a quick trial court dealing with serious offences, including bombings and killings.

Choudhury was hit by the explosion only weeks after taking up his posting. A Muslim, he had stopped at Sylhet to pary at the shrine of saint Hazrat Shah Jalal, while going to visit his ancestral home in a nearby district, officials said.

Mufti Hannan and three of his alleged accomplices were now in jail, police said. They said Hannan had confessed to involvement in the grenade attacks during interrogation.

Envoy Choudhury, still in Bangladesh, recently voiced his satisfaction the investigation had made substantial progress.

Reuters AE GC1613