Ambulance carrying the body of Mir Quasem Ali, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, drives outside Kashimpur Central Jail on the outskirts of Dhaka on Saturday after he was executed for war crimes committed during the 1971 independence war with Pakistan. Photo: AFPDhaka: Bangladesh has hanged a top Islamist party figure for atrocities committed during the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan, the law minister said on Saturday. Mir Quasem Ali, 63, a key financier of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was executed at Kashimpur Central Jail on the outskirts of the capital, for murder, confinement, torture and incitement to religious hatred during the war. Ali was hanged at 10:35 pm (1635 GMT), law minister Anisul Haq told Reuters, days after Bangladesh’s highest court rejected his final appeal against the death sentence. Since December 2013 four other prominent Jamaat members, including former leader Motiur Rahman Nizami, and a leader of the main opposition party, have been executed for war crimes.

Source: Mint September 04, 2016 05:15 UTC