Bangladesh hanged a wealthy tycoon and top financial backer of its largest Islamist party late Saturday for war crimes, dealing a massive blow to the group's ambitions in the Muslim-majority nation. Mir Quasem Ali, a key leader of the Jamaat-i-Islami party, was executed after being convicted by a controversial war crimes tribunal for offences committed during the 1971 independence conflict with Pakistan.
The 63-year-old was hanged at the Kashimpur high security jail in Gazipur, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Dhaka, amid stepped-up security outside the prison and in the capital. "The execution took place at 10:35pm (1635 GMT)," the country's law and justice minister Anisul Huq told AFP. Six opposition leaders have now been executed for war crimes after the secular government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina set up a domestic war crimes tribunal in 2010. With Ali's death, all five top leaders of the Jamaat party have been hanged, a massive set back for the party in the world's third largest Muslim nation.