Home »Top Stories » Bangladesh Supreme Court orders senior Jamaat-i-Islami leader to hang

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  • Sep 18th, 2013
  • Comments Off on Bangladesh Supreme Court orders senior Jamaat-i-Islami leader to hang
Bangladesh's Supreme Court on Tuesday sentenced a senior Jamaat-i-Islami leader to death for mass murder, toughening a punishment originally handed down by the country's war crimes tribunal and sparking fresh violence. Abdul Quader Molla, 65, the fourth-highest leader of the Jamaat-i-Islami party, was given a life sentence in February by Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal.

The tribunal has since January convicted six Islamists of crimes related to the 1971 war. Molla's life sentence had sparked deadly protests and widespread riots and there was fresh unrest Tuesday in the south-eastern port city of Chittagong after he was sentenced to hang.

"There were about 2,000 Jamaat protesters. They rioted, torching a police van and a private car," police chief Mohammad Mohiuddin told AFP, adding police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse demonstrators. There were also clashes in the capital Dhaka and other cities and towns, police said. Outside the northern city of Bogra, a policeman was hurt when protesters hurled small bombs, police inspector Fazlul Karim told AFP.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2013


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