DHAKA—
A special tribunal in Bangladesh has sentenced the head of the country’s largest Islamist party to death for his role in the deaths of thousands during the nation’s independence war against Pakistan in 1971.
The head of a three-judge panel, M. Enayetur Rahim, announced the verdict Wednesday against Motiur Rahman Nizami in a packed courtroom in the nation’s capital of Dhaka. The 71-year-old Nizami was in the dock for the announcement.
Nizami, a former Cabinet minister, was tried on 16 charges, including genocide, murder, torture, rape and destruction of property.
Bangladesh says Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed 3 million people, raped 200,000 women and forced about 10 million people to take shelter in refugee camps across the border in neighboring India during the nine-month war.