Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday, May 15 lashed out at Europe's silence over the execution of a veteran Islamist leader in Bangladesh, accusing the West of "double standards," AFP says.
"If you are against political executions, why did you remain silent to the execution of Motiur Rahman Nizami who was martyred a couple of days ago," Erdogan said in a televised speech in Istanbul.
"Have you heard anything from Europe? … No. Isn't it called double standards?" Erdogan said.
Nizami, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was hanged at a Dhaka jail late Tuesday for the massacre of intellectuals during the 1971 independence war with Pakistan.
The 73-year-old former government minister was the fifth and the most senior opposition figure executed since the secular government in the overwhelmingly Muslim nation set up a controversial war crimes tribunal in 2010, Reuters says.
The 1971 conflict, one of the bloodiest in world history, led to the creation of an independent Bangladesh from what was then East Pakistan.
Prosecutors said Nizami was responsible for setting up the pro-Pakistani Al-Badr militia, which killed top writers, doctors and journalists in the most gruesome chapter of the war.
The trial heard Nizami ordered the killings, designed to "intellectually cripple" the fledgling nation.
