A Dhaka court on Thursday sentenced three people to life term imprisonment and acquitted four others in a case filed over the 2015 killing of Italian citizen Cesare Tavella in the capital’s Gulshan area.

Dhaka’s 3rd Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge Sheikh Samidul Islam delivered the verdict.

The three lifers are Tamjid Ahmed alias Rubel, Russell Chowdhury, and Minhajul Arefin alias Vagne Russell.

Those acquitted are BNP leader MA Quayum, his brother Abdul Matin, Shakhawat Hossain, and Sohel.

According to the case documents, among the accused, Tamjid Ahmed, Russell Chowdhury, Minhajul Arefin, Abdul Matin, and Shakhawat Hossain gave confessional statements before the court admitting their involvement in the killing at different times during the trial.

Two of the accused, Quayum and Sohel, remained absconding during the trial while Matin was out on bail.

The remaining four accused were produced before the court during the verdict.

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According to the case, on the evening of September 28, 2015, unidentified assailants shot dead Tavella, a staff member of Netherlands-based international organization ICCO Cooperation-BD, near the western end of Road 90 in Gulshan, adjacent to Gulshan Avenue and the southern wall of Governor House.

Locals rushed him to United Hospital where doctors declared him dead.

Later, a US-based website claimed that the militant group Islamic State (IS) took responsibility for the killing.

Following the incident, Helen Dar Bique, the country representative of ICCO Cooperation in Bangladesh, filed a murder case with Gulshan Police Station, naming three unidentified persons as accused.

On June 28, 2016, Detective Branch (DB) Inspector Golam Rabbani, the investigating officer of the case, submitted the charge sheet against seven people including BNP joint convenor and former ward commissioner MA Quayum.

The charge sheet was accepted by the Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court on August 24 of the same year.