Bangladesh executes top Islamist leader for war crimes

Motiur Rahman Nizami, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party in Bangladesh, pictured here in 2014, was hanged on May 10, 2016, at a prison in the capital Dhaka

Dhaka (AFP) - Bangladesh on Tuesday executed the leader of the country's largest Islamist party for war crimes, officials said, a move set to exacerbate tensions in the volatile Muslim-majority nation.

Motiur Rahman Nizami, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was hanged at a prison in the capital Dhaka, just days after the nation's highest court dismissed his final appeal to overturn the death sentence for atrocities committed during the country's 1971 war of independence with Pakistan.