Bangladesh Islamist war criminal Ghulam Azam dead at 91

Bangladeshi war criminal Ghulam Azam died from a heart attack Thursday aged 91, just over a year after being sentenced to 90 years in prison for masterminding atrocities during the country’s independence war. Azam was the head of Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamist party, when Bangladesh, then known as East Pakistan, fought a brutal nine-month war against Pakistan in 1971. A special war court set up by the country’s secular government found Azam guilty in July 2013 of five charges of planning, conspiracy, incitement, complicity and murder during the conflict.

He was suffering from old age complications. He also did not get adequate care in the hospital.

Lawyer Tajul Islam

During his trial, Azam was described as the “architect” of pro-Pakistani militias responsible for many atrocities during the war, in which three million people were killed. When India intervened at the end of the brutal conflict, the militias killed dozens of professors, playwrights, filmmakers, doctors and journalists. Many of the bodies were found a few days after the war at a marsh outside Dhaka, blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their backs.

World