Woman in Bangladesh sentenced to death for 'cutting out lover's heart' after he secretly made a sex tape of them

Fatema Akhter Sonali confessed to killing her boyfriend out of revenge after he made the tape and refused to marry her

Few women in Bangladesh are sentenced to death (Getty Images)

A women has been sentenced to death in Bangladesh for cutting out his lover’s heart after she discovered he had secretly made sex tapes with her and several other women.

Fatema Akhter Sonali acted out of revenge after her boyfriend refused to marry her and she discovered videos he had secretly made on his laptop, prosecutor Quazi Shabbir Ahmed.

He told AFP: "It's rare for a woman to be sentenced to death. But her case was exceptional..

"She admitted to the court she killed her lover, Emdadul Haq Shipon, for refusing to marry her and for keeping a recording video of their sexual intercourse in his laptop."

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The 21-year-old confessed to giving 28-year-old Shipon a soft drink spiked with 20 sleeping pills before binding his hands and feet and slitting his throat.

Afterwards she cut open his chest and removed his heart “to see how big it is”.

Mr Ahmed said: “She told the court... a man must have a big heart to carry out such audacious crimes”.

Sonali can challenge the sentence in a higher court.

This is believed to be one of the few times a woman has been sentenced to death in the country since it gained independence from Pakistan in 1971.

Last year, Oishee Rahman was sentenced to death for killing her parents despite her lawyers arguing that she was under 18 at the time of the murders in 2013.

According to Amnesty International, a court in Dhaka upheld a medical examination that concluded she was 19 but she can still appeal her sentence in the High Court.