Islamic leader executed in Bangladesh for role in 70s war crimes

Bangladesh has executed a top leader of the country’s biggest Islamic party for war crimes that took place four decades ago, sparking violence in Asia’s fifth-most populous country.

Abdul Quader Mollah, 65, the assistant secretary-general of Jamaat-e-Islami, was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail, Maqbul Ahmed, the party’s acting chief, said. The execution is the first stemming from a war crimes tribunal established in 2009, the year after prime minister Sheikh Hasina returned to power.

Her government’s “collapse and ultimate ruin is inevitable”, Ahmed said. “It has invited its own doom.”