A man who was killed while trying to hijack a commercial flight in Bangladesh was a 24-year-old passenger from a village near the capital who had been previously arrested in a kidnapping case, officials said.

A Bangladesh court has allowed police to hold three suspects, including a British citizen, for seven days for interrogation in the murders of two secular bloggers.

Bangladeshi security officials arrested a suspect yesterday over the killing of an American writer Avijit Roy, a prominent critic of extremist Islam, was hacked to death last week as he walked with his wife in Dhaka.