Bangladesh court reduces death sentence of Islamist party leader

Bangladesh’s top court on Wednesday commuted the death sentence of an Islamist party leader convicted of war crimes to life imprisonment.

A five-member bench of Appellate Division of Bangladesh’s Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain, pronounced the verdict at 10:06 a.m. local time by majority view amid tight security, reports Xinhua.

The apex court delivered the final judgment on an appeal against the verdict of the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT)-1 sentencing Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islmai party’s Nayeb-e-Ameer (vice- president) Delwar Hossain Sayeedi to death for war crimes including mass killings during the country’s war 42 years ago.

The ICT-1 pronounced the verdict in February last year on a crimes against humanity case, awarding death sentence to Sayeedi, also a former member of parliament.

Sayeedi, believed to be the second-most important Jamaat leader, through his counsel filed appeal against the ICT judgment seeking acquittal on all charges.

Sayeedi would have to remain imprisoned “for the rest of his natural life”, said the Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain while delivering the judgment.

About 73-year-old Sayeedi, considered a world famous orator on Islam and comparative religion, was indicted in October, 2011 with 20 charges of crimes against humanity including looting, killing, arson, rape and forcefully converting people into Muslims during the war.

Jamaat, allegedly collaborated with Pakistani forces in 1971 to prevent an independent Bangladesh, says Sayeedi is the victim of a political vendetta.

After returning to power in January 2009, Hasina, the daughter of Bangladesh’s independence hero Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, established the first tribunal in March 2010, almost forty years after the 1971 fight for independence from Pakistan.

Bomb blasts, arson attacks and clashes with police broke out in Bangladesh on Dec. 13, 2013 following the execution of a senior Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Mollah in the first execution of a war criminal in Bangladesh.

Jamaat says Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ruling Bangladesh Awami League party has targeted the party to split the ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia-led opposition alliance in which Jamaat is a key ally.

Khaleda’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat have dismissed the ICT as a government “show trial” and said it is a domestic set-up with no United Nations oversight or involvement.

Muslim-majority Bangladesh was called East Pakistan until 1971. Hasina’s government said about 3 million people were killed in the war although independent researchers think that between 300,000 and 500,000 died.