Bangladesh court to try top Islamist over war crimes

A Bangladeshi court said on Thursday there was enough evidence to prosecute an Islamist leader on charges of war crimes such as genocide, murder and rape during the country's 1971 liberation struggle. Judges of Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal, set up last year to try people suspected of atrocities during the independence campaign from Pakistan, said charges would be now be framed against Delwar Hossain Sayedee. Sayedee, a senior official of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's largest Islamic party, has been accused of killing more than 50 people, torching several villages, rapes, looting, and forcibly converting Hindus to Islam. "The court set August 10 for a hearing when it will formally list the charges against Sayedee," state prosecutor Syed Haider Ali said. Defence lawyers said they will appeal against the decision. Sayedee is detained along with four other war crime suspects from Jamaat and two from the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). The BNP and Jamaat have dismissed the tribunal as a government "show trial".