Abdul Kader Mullah denied all the charges against him
Bangladesh
has executed the Islamist leader Abdul Kader Mullah, convicted of
atrocities in the 1971 war of independence with Pakistan.
He is the first person convicted by Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) to be executed.The ICT was set up in 2010 to investigate abuses committed during the 1971 conflict, in which some estimate three million people were killed.
Mullah was a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party.
His trial earlier in the year sparked protests from Jamaat supporters.
Several other leading figures in the party have also been convicted by the tribunal.
Mullah had been scheduled to be hanged on Tuesday, before gaining a reprieve pending a last-minute appeal against his death sentence.
Some Bangladeshis took to the streets on Thursday demanding Mullah's immediate execution
The 65-year-old was hanged inside Dhaka central jail at 22:01 local time (16:01 GMT) on Thursday evening.
The BBC's Mahfuz Sadique in Dhaka says security has been tightened in the capital and around the country, and there are reports from various towns of sporadic clashes between Jamaat-e-Islami supporters and security forces.
Those being tried by the ICT are accused of collaborating with Pakistani forces who attempted to stop East Pakistan, as Bangladesh was then, from becoming an independent country.
However, human rights groups have claimed that the tribunal falls short of international standards.
Relatives of Mullah visited the jail on Thursday evening
