A special Bangladeshi court on Monday charged its first suspect with atrocities including genocide, arson, rape and religious persecution during the country's 1971 war of independence.

Delawar Hossain Sayedee, a leader of Bangladesh's largest Islamic party, will be tried at the tribunal set up last year to investigate those accused of crimes committed during the nine-month war against Pakistan.

"Sayedee has been charged with 20 counts including crimes against humanity, murder, genocide, rape, arson, looting and forcibly converting Hindus to Islam," public prosecutor Abdur Rahman Howlader said.

Judge Nizamul Huq read out the charges to Sayedee, 71, in a crowded Dhaka courtroom. If found guilty, Sayedee could face death by hanging.

Muslim-majority Bangladesh, which was called East Pakistan until 1971, has struggled to come to terms with its violent birth.

The current government says up to three million people were killed in the war, many murdered by Bangladeshis collaborating with Pakistani forces.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, established the court after she returned to power in 2009, but it has been widely criticised for targeting her political opponents.

The court is called the International Crimes Tribunal, but it is a domestic set-up with no United Nations oversight or involvement.

"Every word, every sentence and every line of the 4,500-page allegations against me are lies," Sayedee told the court after being charged. "I was not a collaborator. I did not commit any crimes."

Sayedee is alleged to have been the regional chief of a militia that was created during the war to collaborate with the Pakistani army.

Sayedee has been held in detention along with four other suspects from the Jamaat-e-Islami party and two from the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

Both parties have dismissed the tribunal as a government "show trial", while the New York-based group Human Rights Watch has said legal rules being used fall short of international standards.

The 1971 war began after tens of thousands of people were killed in the capital Dhaka when Pakistan launched Operation Searchlight, a campaign intended to deter Bangladeshis from seeking independence.

The violence and subsequent military action that allegedly included mass killings, rape and torture created a groundswell of public support for the pro-independence movement.

"Hundreds of thousands of people were killed during our war of independence, and finally we'll see justice," one of the prosecuting lawyers, Syed Haider Ali, said. "It's a memorable day for the country."

Defence lawyers previously withdrew from proceedings to protest against what they said would be an unfair trial, and it remained unclear who would represent Sayedee in court.

"It's politically motivated case. It aims at tarnishing the image of my client," said Sayedee's lawyer Tajul Islam.

The court will reconvene on October 30.

Source: AFP