The top court upheld a death sentence on Tuesday imposed by the country’s International Crimes Tribunal on a leader of an Islamist political party for killing a freedom fighter during the 1971 war of independence. In a short order read out by Chief Justice Surenda Kumar Sinha, the appellate division of the Supreme Court acquitted Mir Quasem Ali — a leader of Jamaat-e-Islami — of three other charges, including another offence that also carried the death penalty.
The court, however, upheld the convictions and sentences in six other cases. So far, the International Crimes Tribunal — established in 2010 to prosecute those alleged to have committed war crimes during the bloody conflict with Pakistan — has convicted 24 people. Most convicted are leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, which in 1971 supported the military activities of the Pakistan
military to stop Bangladesh’s secession. Four men have now been executed.