NAN – Bangladesh sentenced to death on Wednesday, February 18, 2015 in Dhaka the vice president of the largest Islamist party for crimes during the 1971 war of independence with Pakistan.
The court officials said a three-judge panel of the special war crimes tribunal ruled that Abdus Subhan, 77, should be “hanged to death” for killing 300 people in northern district of Pabna.
Subhan, who was in court for the hearing as security was tight in and around the building, was also charged with assisting the Pakistani militias commit atrocities against civilians.
The Prosecution Lawyer, Zead Al’Malum, said six out of nine counts of war crimes were proved beyond reasonable doubt, including genocide, abduction, torture and other crimes against humanity.
Defence Lawyer, Shishir Monir, said the verdict was based on some factual errors and an appeal would be filed against the judgment.
Most leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami party, which opposed Bangladesh’s secession from Pakistan, have already been convicted by the International Crimes Tribunal established to deal with the case.
The tribunal examined 31 witnesses for the prosecution and none for the accused.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina set up the tribunal to prosecute local collaborators with Pakistani troops, who killed an estimated 3 million people and raped more than 200,000 women during the nine-month war.
A first attempt to establish the tribunal was called off after the 1975 assassination of Bangladesh’s founding president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and also Hasina’s father.
