DHAKA: A war crimes court sentenced a top Bangladeshi Islamist to death on Thursday for masterminding the slaughter of at least 120 farmers in one of the bloodiest single episodes of the 1971 independence war.

In a ruling likely to further fuel tensions between the secular government and religious hardliners, a special tribunal found Mohammad Kamaruzzaman guilty of mass killing, torture, abduction and crimes against humanity.

He would “be hanged by the neck till death”, presiding judge Obaidul Hassan told a packed courtroom in the capital Dhaka.

The 61-year-old Kamaruzzaman, who is the assistant secretary general of the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami party, was the fourth person to be convicted by the much-criticised International Crimes Tribunal and the third senior politician.

As the verdict was announced, he could be heard condemning it as the “wrong judgement” from his seat in the dock. Previous verdicts by the tribunal have sparked widespread violence on the streets of a country that has a 90 per cent Muslim population.

Hundreds of secular protesters who had gathered at a central Dhaka intersection for news of the verdict greeted the announcement with loud cheers.

“Because of his heinous role, many people were murdered and many women were raped,” Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told AFP outside the courthouse.

“The nation has got justice today.”Prosecutors said Kamaruzzaman was a “chief organiser” of Al Badr, a notorious pro-Pakistani militia accused of killing thousands of people in the nine-month war, which saw what was then East Pakistan split from Islamabad.

The genocide charge against Kamaruzzaman stems from the killing of at least 120 unarmed Bangladeshi farmers in the remote northern village of Sohagpur, which has since become known as the “Village of the Widows”.

Three of the widows testified against Kamaruzzaman at his trial in which the prosecution detailed how the then 19-year-old led Pakistani troops to the village.

The soldiers then marched the farmers to paddy fields, forced them to stand in a line and proceeded to gun them down en masse.

Mohammad Jalal Uddin, a farmer who lost seven members of his extended family in the killing, was delighted at the verdict.

“I lost my father, uncle and other relatives. Their crime was to have taken part in training to join the freedom fight,” said Uddin, who was a student at the time.

“My mother and aunt died without getting justice, but at least I've seen justice,” Uddin, who heads the village's welfare society for widows, told AFP by phone. “We still have 37 widows in the village.”Defence lawyers rejected the charges as baseless, saying the chance to prove their client innocent was severely curtailed as the court only allowed five witnesses to testify for Kamaruzzaman.

“He was just a lad during the war. It's a ridiculous suggestion that a 19-year-old could control the Pakistani army,” chief defence counsel Abdur Razzaq told AFP.

The latest verdict came days after at least 38 people were killed in clashes between security forces and Islamists who are demanding a new blasphemy law.

The secular government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has insisted that it will not bow to their demands.

Around 150 people have now been killed since the first verdict on January 21 when an Islamic TV preacher was sentenced to death.

The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its Islamist allies have said the tribunal is a tool for the ruling Awami League to target its opponents.

Two BNP officials and eight other Jamaat officials including its leader are still being tried. A verdict against Ghulam Azam, the wartime head of Jamaat, is expected later this month.

Unlike other war crime courts, the Bangladesh tribunal is not endorsed by the United Nations and the New York-based Human Rights Watch group has said its procedures fall short of international standards.

The government says the trials are needed to heal the wounds of the 1971 war in which it says three million people were killed and 200,000 women raped.

Independent estimates put the toll at between 300,000 and 500,000.