Bangladesh Islamist handed death sentence
- 11 years ago
Uproar outside a Bangladeshi court where a war crimes tribunal convicted and sentenced an Islamist party leader to death Thursday.
Sixty-one-year-old Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, assistant secretary general of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was found guilty of genocide and torture of unarmed civilians during the 1971 war for independence from Pakistan.
War veterans were among hundreds who cheered the verdict, the fourth reached by the tribunal with more to come.
Some fear a repeat of deadly clashes between police and Islamist protesters after similar sentences were handed down earlier this year.
Bangladesh became part of Pakistan at the end of British colonial rule of India in 1947.
But the country, then known as East Pakistan, won independence with India's help in December 1971 following a nine-month war against then West Pakistan.
Sixty-one-year-old Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, assistant secretary general of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was found guilty of genocide and torture of unarmed civilians during the 1971 war for independence from Pakistan.
War veterans were among hundreds who cheered the verdict, the fourth reached by the tribunal with more to come.
Some fear a repeat of deadly clashes between police and Islamist protesters after similar sentences were handed down earlier this year.
Bangladesh became part of Pakistan at the end of British colonial rule of India in 1947.
But the country, then known as East Pakistan, won independence with India's help in December 1971 following a nine-month war against then West Pakistan.