The 90-year old leader of Bangladesh’s main Islamist party has been found guilty of crimes against humanity relating to the 1971 war for independence.

Ghulam Azam of the Jamaat-e-Islami party was sentenced to 90-years in prison for conspiracy, incitement, planning, abetting, and failing to prevent murder.  The prosecution wanted the death penalty, but the court passed on that because of the defendant’s advanced age.  Azam denied the charges and his supporters claimed they were politically motivated. 

Azam sided with Pakistan against independence, and the new Bangladeshi government accused him and his followers of atrocities during the war’s aftermath in the 1970s, and President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman revoked his citizenship.  But Rahman was assassinated and the pro-Islamist junta that followed freed the collaborators. 

Rahman’s son Sheikh Hasina is now Bangladesh’s premier.  And he set up the War Crimes Tribunal in 2010.  Azam is the fifth current or former leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami to be sentenced in connection with the violence of the 1971 war.