Fifteen die at least in protests at Bangladesh Islamist's death sentence

              
 A Bangladesh tribunal convicted  an Islamist party leader and sentenced him to death on Thursday, the third verdict by the court set up to investigate abuses during the country's independence war, triggering widespread protests by supporters in which at least 15 people were killed.                   

Delwar Hossain Sayedee, 73, vice-president of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was found guilty of mass killing, rape, arson, looting and forcing minority Hindus to convert to Islam during the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan, lawyers and tribunal officials said.               

The religious party, known simply as Jamaat, had called for a day-long countrywide strike in anticipation of the verdict against Sayedee, the third senior party member convicted by the tribunal.                 

Police, witnesses and media reports said at least 15 people were killed and around 200 wounded in clashes between Jamaat activists and police as violence erupted in more than a dozen districts.               

Protesters set fire to a Hindu temple and several houses in Noakhali district, south of Dhaka, reporters said. In southeastern Cox's Bazar, they attacked a police camp.             

In the capital, authorities deployed extra police and members of a rapid response force and put paramilitary soldiers on standby, a Home Ministry official told reporters.              

Thousands of people in the capital's Shahbag square, who support the tribunal and have been protesting for weeks to demand the highest penalty for war criminals, burst into cheers as the sentence was announced.                

Sayedee looked defiant and remained calm in the dock as judges read out the verdict, witnesses said.                 

REUTERS