Jamaat-e-Islami leader Muhammad Kamaruzzaman hanged by Bangladesh for 1971 war crimes

Jamaat-e-Islami leader Muhammad Kamaruzzaman was in news as Bangladesh on 11 April 2015 hanged him for committing 1971 war crimes after he refused to seek presidential clemency.

He was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail after the Supreme Court of Bangladesh rejected his appeal against a death sentence imposed by a special tribunal for genocide and torture of civilians during the conflict.

He was found guilty by the war crimes tribunal in May 2013 on five out of seven charges of crimes against humanity, including the murder and torture of unarmed civilians and of masterminding one of the bloodiest single episodes in the independence war of Bangladesh. 

He played a prominent role alongside Pakistani troops in the slaughter of at least 120 unarmed farmers in the remote northern village of Sohagpur which subsequently became known as the village of widows.

Kamaruzzaman was the assistant secretary-general of the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party and was the third most senior figure in Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist opposition party to be hanged.

He is the second leader of Jamaat-e-Islami party to be hanged since tribunals were set up more than four years ago to try suspected war criminals of 1971 war.

Earlier in December 2013 Abdul Kader Mullah, assistant secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami since 2010 and a former editor of an Islamist newspaper, was hanged after being found guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes.