Dhaka: ATM Azharul Islam, a top leader of fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party, was sentenced to death on Tuesday by a Bangladeshi special court for committing warcrimes during the country's independence war against Pakistan.
The International Crimes Tribunal sentenced Islam to death after finding him guilty of charges likes genocides, murders, tortures and rapes.
"He shall be hanged by neck until he is dead," pronounced chairman of the three-member panel of judges Justice Enayetur Rahim while delivering a 158-page verdict after Islam appeared on the dock.
He said the convict deserved no punishment other than death penalty as five of the six charges against Islam were proved beyond doubt while in subsequent years after the independence he never showed any gesture of remorse for his acts in 1971.
Under the law, Islam, however, could challenge the verdict in the Supreme Court while he is the last of the top Jamaat leaders who were exposed to justice for committing crimes against humanity siding with the Pakistani troops in 1971.
Islam, 61, was charged on six counts of atrocities and in one of the major proven charges he was accused of is leading the massacre of 1,225 people in Rangpur. He was also found guilty of abducting and murdering a Carmichael College professor and his wife.
Tight security vigil was enforced as a microbus carried Islam, attired in a cream colour coat, to the tribunal at the Supreme Court complex in the central part of the capital from Dhaka Central Jail.
Senior police officials including Dhaka's police commissioner visited the court complex to oversee the security arrangements with witnesses saying extra numbers of CCTV cameras were installed in different parts of the compound to enforce a close vigil on activities of the visitors.
Islam was arrested in August 2012 and was indicted on November 12 last year while the prosecution lawyers said they were satisfied with the judgment as they successfully proved the charges with adequate evidence.
"But we are not at all satisfied with the verdict. It was based on fictitious testimonies of witnesses, we will challenge the verdict in the Supreme Court," defence counsel Tazul Islam told reporters.
