A special tribunal in Bangladesh has sentenced three members of a militia group to death for their role in killings and other serious crimes committed during the country’s independence war against Pakistan.
Five other defendants were sentenced to life in prison in the same case.
A three-member panel of judges announced the verdict Monday with only two of the defendants in the docks. The others were tried in absentia. All of them were members of Al Badr, which collaborated with the Pakistani army to commit genocide in Bangladesh’s Jamalpur district in 1971.
Bangladesh says Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed 3 million people, raped 200,000 women and forced 10 million people to flee to refugee camps in India.

Building tragedy
Also in Bangladesh on Monday, a court formally charged 38 people with murder in connection with the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza building which killed 1,135 people in the country’s worst industrial disaster.
A total of 41 defendants face charges over the collapse of the complex, which housed five garment factories supplying global brands. Plaza owner Sohel Rana is the principal accused. Public Prosecutor Abdul Mannan said 38 people had been charged with murder while three were charged with helping Rana to flee after the incident. Rana was arrested after a four-day manhunt, apparently trying to flee across the border to India.
Of the 41 people charged, 35, including Rana, appeared before the court and pleaded not guilty, Mannan told reporters. The other six are fugitives and will be tried in absentia. If convicted, defendants could face the death penalty.
The collapse of the complex, built on swampy ground outside the capital Dhaka, sparked demands for greater safety in the world’s second-largest exporter of readymade garments and put pressure on companies buying clothing from Bangladesh to act. Duty-free access to Western markets and low wages for its workers helped turn Bangladesh’s garment exports into a $28 billion-a-year industry that is the economic lifeblood of the country of 160 million people.
The minimum monthly wage for garment workers in Bangladesh is $68, compared with about $280 in mainland China, which remains the world’s biggest clothes exporter.
The tragedy prompted safety checks that led to many factory closures and the loss of exports and jobs.

Source : Arab News