B'desh Islamists on trial for attack on U K envoy

DHAKA, July 31 (Reuters) Four members of an outlawed Islamist group went on trial in Bangladesh today on charges of trying to kill Britain's envoy to the country in a grenade attack three years ago.

High Commissioner Anwar 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 50, including the envoy.

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

''A quick trial court has started prosecution by formally taking the charges against the Islamists in cognizance,'' said a police officer in Sylhet, 350 km from Dhaka.

The four men who are being tried are members of the Harkatul jihad, one of several outlawed groups trying to establish Islamic rule in Bangladesh through a violent campaign.

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

Bangladesh suffered a series of bomb attacks in 2005 which authorities said were carried out by the Islamist militant groups as part of their campaign to force sharia law in the mainly Muslim country.

The violence has since eased after the heads of two powerful militant groups were arrested and executed following their conviction in the attacks.

Choudhury, who remains posted in Bangladesh, said recently he was satisfied with the progress of the investigation into the grenade attack.

REUTERS ARB BST1548