BANGLADESH. FOUR STUDENTS GET DEATH PENALTY FOR KILLING SPREE

March 27, 2008: four former students who shot dead eight rivals with AK-47 rifles over a college power struggle have been given the death penalty, a Bangladesh court official in Chittagong said. Three more Jamaat-e-Islami activists received life terms over the attack in July 2000. The victims were members of the youth wing of the Awami League, one of Bangladesh's main political parties. Seven were killed immediately while the eighth died in hospital.
"The students from the Awami League wanted to take control of the politics of their college, but so did the other students from Jamaat-e-Islami youth wing," said public prosecutor Ahsanul Huq Hena. Two of the four men condemned to death are on the run and were sentenced in absentia, while another two were recently killed in shooting incidents with security services, Hena said.
All the students were in their early 20s at the time of the attack. (Sources: Agence France Presse, 27/03/2008)