Islamist Found Guilty in Bangladesh

Delwar Hossain Sayedee, 73, vice-president of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was found guilty by Bangladesh's war crimes tribunal of mass killing, rape, arson, looting and forcing minority Hindus to convert to Islam during the 1971 war of separation from Pakistan, lawyers and tribunal officials said.

After he was convicted and sentenced, police clashed with activists from Sayedee's party and violence raged in more than a dozen areas around the country, police, witnesses and media reports said.

At least three policemen were among the dead and around 300 were wounded, they added.

 

Protesters, who said the verdict was politically motivated, set fire to a Hindu temple and several houses in southern Noakhali region, reporters said. In the southeastern region of Cox's Bazar, they attacked a police camp, killing one.

Two policemen were killed when Islamists stormed a police station at Sundarganj in northern Gaibandha district, police said. "We have been virtually besieged. It's a horrible situation," station officer Manzur Rahman told Reuters.

Members of the religious party - known simply as Jamaat - called for a national strike on Sunday and Monday, raising fears of more violence. Sayedee was the third senior party member convicted by the tribunal.

In the capital, authorities deployed extra police and paramilitary soldiers, a Home Ministry official told reporters.

Thousands of people in the capital's Shahbag square, who support the tribunal and have been protesting for weeks to demand the highest penalty for war criminals, burst into cheers as the sentence was announced.

Sayedee looked defiant but remained calm in the dock as judges read out the verdict, witnesses said.

"I didn't commit any crime and the judges are not giving the verdict from the core of their heart," Sayedee told the tribunal, said reporters at the hearing.

State prosecutor Haider Ali told reporters he was happy with the verdict which he said "appropriately demonstrated justice".

Defense attorney Abdur Razzak said the sentence was politically motivated. "He is a victim of sheer injustice. We will appeal," he said.