Bangladeshi security forces arrested on Sunday the leader of the country's biggest Islamist party on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, a senior police official said. AKM Yusuf, the leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, was arrested in the capital Dhaka and charged with offences dating back to Bangladesh's 1971 war.
His arrest comes after the sentencing to death last week of another Jamaat-e-Islami leader for wartime atrocities. That decision brought a wave of violent protest from supporters, and police say they are concerned about the risk of a backlash from Jamaat activists. More than 100 people have been killed in protests and counter-protests since January, when a tribunal set up by the government to investigate alleged abuses in the war sentenced to death in absentia a former senior Jamaat-e-Islami figure.