Protests over a war-crimes trial verdict in Bangladesh have resulted in at least six deaths here in the capital city of Dhaka and in the southeast tourist city of Cox's Bazar, police said Friday Feb 15,2013
The incidents stem from
February 5, when an International War Crimes Tribunal sentenced Abdul
Quader Mollah, a leader of the Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami, to life in
prison on war-crimes charges -- including murder -- that date back to
the country's war of independence in 1971.
The protesters, many of them students, demanded that Mollah's penalty be changed to death.
Protests have also taken
place 450 kilometers (280 miles) southeast of the capital in Cox's
Bazar, where at least three people were killed Friday when
Jamaat-e-Islami activists clashed with police, police said.
Amid tight security, a three-member panel of judges of the International
Crimes Tribunal-2 delivered the judgment against 64-year-old Mollah,
who in 1971 was the chief of the students' wing of Jamaat-e-Islami.
The trials are also seen as part of a long and bitter rivalry between
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the main opposition leader, former
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who is allied with the Islamic party
Jamaat-e-Islami, many of whose leaders face charges before the tribunal.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has shown no sign of backing down, saying the trials will be completed at any cost.
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