Death appeal rejected

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s top court yesterday rejected a final appeal by the leader of an Islamist party against a death sentence for atrocities committed during the 1971 war of independence.

The verdict comes amid a spate of militant attacks in the Muslimmajority nation, the most serious on July 1, when gunmen stormed a café in the capital, Dhaka, and killed 20 hostages, most of them foreigners.

The rejection, by a panel of five judges headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, comes a day after a visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry, who urged Bangladesh to uphold democratic principles.

In March, the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty for Mir Quasem Ali, 63, a media tycoon and key financier of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, for murder, confinement, torture and incitement to religious hatred during the war to leave Pakistan. – Reuters