The chief of Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami was on Tuesday sentenced to death along with two of his associates for a 2004 grenade attack on the then British envoy to Dhaka that killed three people.

A trial court tribunal set up in Sylhet, 190 km northeast of Dhaka, sentenced HuJI leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and two other members of the terrorist outfit Shahid Shahidul Alam and Delwar Hossain Ripon to death by hanging.

Judge Shamim Mohammad Afzal handed down life imprisonment to another two members of the banned militant group over the grenade attack on former British high commissioner Anwar Chowdhury in Sylhet.

Three people were killed and over 50, including Anwar Choudhury, injured when the militants hurled grenade on the envoy when he visited the shrine of Hazrat Shah Jalal on May 21, 2004.

Hannan, who was arrested in October 2005, is also facing trial in two other cases --  the August 21, 2004 grenade attack on former premier Shiekh Hasina at a public meeting that left 40 people dead and 400 injured and the April 14, 2001 blasts during the Bangla new year celebrations at a Dhaka park that killed 10 and injured 50.

HuJI's involvement is also suspected in several recent bomb blasts in India.