DHAKA, Bangladesh - A former chief of Bangladesh's largest Islamic party has been denied bail by a special tribunal and jailed pending trial on charges of crimes against humanity during the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
The International Crimes Tribunal ordered 89-year-old Ghulam Azam jailed during a hearing Wednesday in the capital, Dhaka.
Azam led the Jamaat-e-Islami party until 2000. He is charged with heading a group that campaigned against Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan and aided Pakistani soldiers in commiting crimes such as murder, arson and looting in 1971.
Bangladesh says Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed an estimated 3 million people, raped about 200,000 women and forced millions to flee their homes.
