Bangladesh to Hang Islamist Party Leader
Bangladesh to Hang Islamist Party Leader Bangladesh's supreme court Thursday rejected an appeal of the death sentence given to Islamist party leader Motiur Rahman Nizami for war crimes during the country's 1971 independence struggle, meaning he could be hanged at any time in the coming days. Nizami, the head of Bangladesh's largest Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, was convicted of genocide, rape, and orchestrating the massacre of top intellectuals. Prosecutors claim he was responsible for setting up Al-Badr, a pro-Pakistani militia which killed top writers, doctors, and journalists at the height of the conflict. Their bodies were found in a marsh on the outskirts of the capital, blindfolded and with hands tied. Security has already been increased in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka. The convictions of other Jamaat-e-Islami officials in 2013 sparked the country's deadliest violence in decades, leaving over 500 people dead, mostly in clashe s between Islamists and police....