Bangladesh Islamist Leader Sentenced to Death

{{A Bangladesh court has sentenced a senior leader of the country’s largest Islamic party to death for war crimes committed during the 1971 liberation war.}}

Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, 65, was found guilty by the International Crimes Tribunal of five charges, including abduction and murder, and was sentenced to death, MK Rahman, Bangladesh’s junior attorney-general and prosecutor said on Wednesday.

“In three out of five charges he was given the death sentence,” Rahman said.

Mojaheed, the secretary-general of Jamaat-e-Islam, had faced seven charges of murder, mass killing, torture, arson and abduction during he war of liberation against Pakistan.

Media in Dhaka, said that Mojaheed’s son told media that the crimes he was accused of were politically motivated.

Mojaheed was an influential minister in the 2001-2006 government headed by Khaleda Zia, the present head of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

{aljazeera}