Dhaka: A top leader of fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party and Bangladeshi media doyen Mir Quasem Ali was sentenced to death today by a special tribunal for war crimes he committed during the independence war against Pakistan in 1971, days after the party's chief was given capital punishment on identical charges.
"He (Ali) shall be hanged by neck until he is dead," pronounced chairman of the three-member tribunal as the 62-year-old Jamaat leader looked bewildered on the dock.
The court simultaneously sentenced him to 72-year imprisonment for several other charges while lawyers said the jail terms would be virtually infructuous since he was sentenced to death.
Emerging from the court, the lawyers and witnesses said the tribunal found Ali guilty of 10 out of 14 charges while under two charges he was sentenced to death for torturing to death two juvenile freedom fighters and throwing their bodies into a river at northeastern port city of Chittagong.
Ali was said to have been the third man in the command of the infamous Gestapo like Al-Badr militia forces and is also known to be a top financier of Jamaat as he owned a number of big businesses in Bangladesh. Alongside a number of businesses in different sectors, Ali owns the Diganta Media Corporation, which runs a now suspended television channel and a newspaper, known for their close links with Jamaat.
