DHAKA — Bangladesh on Thursday executed an opposition leader convicted of war crimes hours after the Supreme Court rejected a last-minute appeal, officials said. The death threatened to spark new violence ahead of national elections next month. Sheikh Yousuf Harun, chief government administrator in Dhaka, said Abdul Quader Mollah was hanged at 10:01 p.m. Mollah's Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, immediately called a nationwide general strike for Sunday. Mollah, 65, was found guilty of war crimes during the nation's war of independence against Pakistan in 1971. The government says Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed 3 million people and raped 200,000 women during the nine-month war. He is the first person executed after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2010 began trying people suspected of crimes during the war. Most of the defendants are opposition members. Mollah's execution had been placed on hold Tuesday night just before he originally was to have been put to death. The Supreme Court rejected his final appeal on Thursday. — AP
