Bangladesh war criminal Azam dies

A Bangladeshi campaigner for capital punishment for all war crime suspects involved in the 1971 war of independence holds a noose during a protest against a court ruling commuting the death sentence of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee, in Dhaka. Picture: AM Ahad

A Bangladeshi campaigner for capital punishment for all war crime suspects involved in the 1971 war of independence holds a noose during a protest against a court ruling commuting the death sentence of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee, in Dhaka. Picture: AM Ahad

Published Oct 23, 2014

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Dhaka - Former head of Bangladesh's largest Islamist party Ghulam Azam, who last year was sentenced to 90 years in prison for masterminding atrocities during the country's 1971 war, died on Thursday night.

Azam, 91, the wartime head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party who later turned into its spiritual leader and a key player in the country's politics, died of a heart attack while in custody at a hospital in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka.

“He died of cardiac arrest at 10.10 pm today,” a director of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University hospital Abdul Majid Bhuiyan told reporters.

Sapa-AFP

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