Bangladesh Jamaat's deputy chief sentenced to death for war crimes

Bangladesh's war crimes tribunal has sentenced the deputy chief of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party to death on three charges for committing crimes during the country's Liberation War in 1971.

The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT)-2 found the Jamaat Vice President Abdus Subhan guilty of collaborating with Pakistani forces and committing war crimes including mass killings.

The tribunal pronounced the verdict Wednesday afternoon on a crime against humanity case, awarding death sentence to Subhan, now behind the bar.

The three-member panel of the ICT-2 read the summary of verdict at a jam-packed court room in the presence of a huge crowd of people, particularly journalists and lawyers, amid tightened security measures in and around the tribunal.

The 79-year-old Jamaat leader was also sentenced to imprisonment until death on two charges and five years' imprisonment for another.

He was indicted in December last year with 9 charges of crimes against humanity, including torturing, mass killings, and rape.

The tribunal awarded capital for aiding the murder of some 400 unarmed civilians by the Pakistani army and its local collaborators during the country's liberation war.

He was, however, acquitted of three of the nine charges.

Bangladesh on Dec. 12 of 2013 executed Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Molla, convicted of war crimes in 1971.

Both ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its key ally Jamaat have dismissed the court as a government "show trial" and said it is a domestic set-up without the oversight or involvement of the United Nations. Endi