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Bangladesh Sentences Islamic Leader to Death for War Crimes


Bangladeshi activists shout slogans as they celebrate outside the International Crimes Tribunal where leaders of the country’s largest Islamic party the Jamaat-e-Islami party are on trial in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Feb. 5, 2013.
Bangladeshi activists shout slogans as they celebrate outside the International Crimes Tribunal where leaders of the country’s largest Islamic party the Jamaat-e-Islami party are on trial in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Feb. 5, 2013.
Bangladesh's Supreme Court handed down a death sentence to Abdul Quader Mollah, a leader of the Jemaat-e-Islami party and a top Islamic leader during the country's 1971 war of independence against Pakistan. Mollah had earlier been convicted of crimes against humanity.

The sentencing comes after a previous sentence of life in prison, handed down by a war crimes tribunal, was deemed too lenient. Protests erupted after his original sentence was issued in January, leading parliament to revise its war crimes laws. The laws now allow the state to appeal any sentence deemed to be inadequate.

More than 100 people died in the protests over a series of months earlier this year. Mollah's sentence was the first handed down by the war crimes tribunal.

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