DHAKA: Bangladesh’s war crimes court yesterday sentenced a fugitive mayor to death for mass murder and rape during the 1971 independence struggle against Pakistan, the latest opposition figure to face the gallows.
Zahid Hossain Khokon, a main opposition party official, was found guilty of 10 charges including forcibly converting minority Hindus to Islam during the nine-month war. “He got the death sentence for six charges and 40 years’ jail for four other charges,” prosecutor Mukhlesur Rahman told reporters after the verdict was handed down.
Khokon, mayor of Nagarkanda town, disappeared after he was charged last year, and the court “ordered the national police chief and the district police chief to find and arrest him,” he said. But Rahman said he believed the 70-year-old had fled to Sweden where he was hiding out with relatives. Khokon is the second official from the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to be handed the death penalty for war crimes.
The centre-right party has called the court’s trials politically motivated. During the war, Khokon was an official of the main Islamist party, whose members have also been tried and sentenced to death by the court.
Prosecutors said Khokon led a pro-Pakistani militia in his home town that opposed Bangladesh’s independence. “He was directly involved in the killing of some 50 people. He forced Hindus to become Muslims and raped and tortured women,” Rahman said ahead of the verdict. AFP
