B’desh Islamist’s death sentence sparks celebrations, deadly riots

Dhaka: A Bangladeshi Islamist party leader was sentenced to death on Thursday over abuses carried out during the country’s independence war, triggering celebrations as well as deadly riots that killed at least 30 people. Delwar Hossain Sayedee, vice-president of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was found guilty by Bangladesh’s war crimes tribunal of mass killing, rape, arson, looting and forcing minority Hindus to convert to Islam during the 1971 war of separation from Pakistan, lawyers and tribunal officials said. After he was convicted and sentenced, police clashed with activists from Sayedee’s party and violence raged in more than a dozen areas around the country.