Security forces braced for unrest as Bangladeshi

Security forces braced for unrest as Bangladeshi Islamist leader Abdul Kader Mullah sentenced to death

Bangladesh’s security forces are braced for unrest after the country’s highest court issued a death sentence for an Islamist leader convicted of war crimes – a move that sparked protests by his supporters and the potential for further clashes on Wednesday.

In a decision that lawyers for Abdul Kader Mullah said was highly political, the country’s Supreme Court changed the Islamist leader’s sentence from life imprisonment to hanging. The 65-year-old had been convicted earlier this year of crimes against humanity during Bangladesh’s brutal war of independence in 1971.

“Never before in the history of Bangladesh, when a trial court refused to give the death sentence [has] the final court [then] given the death sentence,” Mullah’s main lawyer, Abdur Razzaq, told The Independent.

Mullah, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, had been found guilty in February. At the time, when the court sentenced him to life imprisonment, there were massive protests in Dhaka and other cities from secular groups and ordinary people, demanding that he receive the death penalty.

The demonstrations, and subsequent counter protests from Islamic groups, left up to 100 people dead.

The scale of the “Shahbagh protests”, when scores of thousands of people poured onto the streets, unnerved the government of prime minister Sheikh Hasina and led it amend the law to allow prosecutors to appeal against sentences handed down by the courts. Until that point, prosecutors could only appeal if a court acquitted a defendant.

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