A special Bangladesh court has sentenced to death the leader of the country's largest Islamist party for war crimes.
The war crimes tribunal found Motiur Rahman Nizami, head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, guilty of mass murder, rape and looting during Bangladesh's war of independence against Pakistan in 1971.
Head judge Enayetur Rahim sentenced Nizami on Wednesday to "hang by the neck until his death" for orchestrating the killing of doctors, intellectuals and others during the conflict as head of a ruthless militia.
"It's a historic verdict," chief prosecutor Haider Ali told reporters outside the packed and heavily guarded court in Dhaka.
Ali said Nizami, Jamaat's leader since 2000 and a minister in a former Jamaat-allied government, led the notorious Al-Badr militia "which took part in many heinous crimes".
Security was tightened across Bangladesh ahead of the ruling after similar judgments against several of Nizami's senior lieutenants plunged the country into one of its worst crises last year.
After the verdict was issued, Jamaat supporters took to the streets in several cities and towns to protest, clashing with police and border guards, but it was quiet in the capital.
Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas in northeastern Sylhet to disperse demonstrators there, the city's police commissioner Rokon Uddin said.
Smaller clashes and protests were reported in the towns of Nawabganj, Rajshahi, Sherpur and Mymensingh in the north.
Jamaat, more than a dozen of whose leaders are being tried for war crimes, called a three-day nationwide strike starting on Thursday, saying it was "stunned" by the verdict.
Junior home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said "all sorts of security measures" had been taken across Bangladesh amid fears the sentence could unleash a new round of bloodletting.
Tens of thousands of Jamaat supporters fought with police and more than 500 people died in the earlier unrest and subsequent political violence ahead of disputed polls in January.
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