Six members of an Islamist militant group were sentenced to death on Tuesday by a court in Bangladesh for the brutal killing of two gay rights campaigners, five years ago.
Xulhaz Mannan, 35, and Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy, 25, were hacked to death in Mannan’s apartment in the capital Dhaka in April 2016, in an attack claimed by Ansar Al Islam, the regional arm of al Qaeda.
Mannan was the editor of Bangladesh’s first magazine for gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) people and Rabbi was a film actor.
The killings were part of a series of attacks on atheist bloggers, academics and other minorities that shocked the South Asian nation of 170 million and led many to go into hiding or flee abroad.
