News Digest

Death sentence upheld for Bangladesh Islamist party chief

Bangladesh’s top court on Wednesday upheld a death sentence given to the leader of the country’s largest Islamist party for atrocities and multiple killings he committed during the nation’s independence war against Pakistan in 1971. Motiur Rahman Nizami, the 72-year-old head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was convicted last year by a special tribunal dealing with war crimes on 16 charges, including genocide, murder, torture, rape and destruction of property. The verdict came as a wave of deadly assaults last year on foreigners, secular writers and members of the Shiite community in the Sunni-majority nation raised international concerns that religious extremism is taking hold in the traditionally moderate country.

The apex court has put the seal on his death penalty handed down previously by the (Bangladesh’s) International Crimes Tribunal.

Senior prosecution lawyer Jiad Al Malum

Defense lawyers said they did not get justice. The Jamaat-e-Islami announced a countrywide general strike for Thursday to protest the verdict, the party said in a statement. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina set up the special war crimes tribunal in 2010 and three senior Jamaat-e-Islami leaders and another influential member of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, headed by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, have already been hanged for their roles in killing people in 1971. Zia is Hasina’s arch rival, and Nizami was a cabinet minister during her last term in 2001-2006.