Three crude bombs exploded outside a special tribunal in Bangladesh Wednesday shortly after the court sentenced a senior Jamaat-e-Islami leader to death for crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 independence war against Pakistan.
Abdus Subhan, 79, was sentenced by the three-member International Crimes Tribunal-2, saying six of the nine charges against him were proved beyond doubt. “He (Subhan) will be hanged till death,” chairman of the tribunal Obaidul Haque said as he read out the 165-page verdict.
Subhan was convicted for murder, loot, abduction, confinement, arson and torture.
The verdict is set to raise tensions further in Dhaka where more than 100 people have died since January in anti-government protests led by ex-premier Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its ally Jamaat over last year’s elections.
Subhan, a vice president of the party, is the 16th and the last of the high-profile figures to be convicted since the start of the war crime trials in 2010 against Jamaat leaders, who were opposed to the country’s independence.
As per the chargesheet, Subhan guided Pakistani soldiers to kill over 300 villagers at his home district in northwestern Pabna. The tribunal found that Subhan himself killed many of them.
{{/usCountry}}As per the chargesheet, Subhan guided Pakistani soldiers to kill over 300 villagers at his home district in northwestern Pabna. The tribunal found that Subhan himself killed many of them.
{{/usCountry}}Subhan had fled the country at the end of the independence war and returned home after the August 1975 coup, which toppled the country’s post independence government.
He was indicted in December last year, an year after his arrest on charges of war crimes along with other Jamaat leaders.