BANGLADESH
Jailed Islamist executed
Bangladeshi authorities executed a top Islamist party leader convicted of war crimes involving the nation’s 1971 independence war against Pakistan, officials said. Mir Quasem Ali, a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was hanged at 10:30 p.m. Saturday, hours after several dozen family members and relatives met him for the last time inside the jail near the capital, Dhaka, a jail official said. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said security measures were put in place to prevent unrest by Ali’s supporters, including deployment of paramilitary border guards and additional police in Dhaka and other cities.
UZBEKISTAN
Former president buried
Uzbekistan’s widely criticized authoritarian leader Islam Karimov was hailed as a statesman and democrat by his government as he was laid to rest Saturday in the ancient silk road city of Samarkand. The coffin of 78-year-old Karimov, whose death from a cerebral hemorrhage was announced Friday, was placed in the renowned Registan square. Thousands of men packed the square — women were excluded — to hear a mufti give a funeral prayer. The former president’s body was then taken to the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis for burial. Karimov became the leader of Uzbekistan in 1989, when it was a Soviet republic, and held power throughout all of Uzbekistan’s independence. He crushed opposition, repressed the media and was repeatedly denounced by activists abroad for human rights violations.
JAMAICA
16 arrested in lottery scam
Sixteen people arrested for allegedly defrauding U.S. citizens will appear in court this month as Jamaican authorities take aim at lottery scam gangs that they blame for much of the island’s violent crime. Authorities said Friday the suspects are accused of defrauding victims of $50,000 between 2011 and 2015. The Jamaican scam rings generally prey on elderly people in the U.S. by coercing money from them after tricking victims into thinking they have won a lottery.
GERMANY
Thousands protest Turkey
Tens of thousands of Kurds, including many carrying flags with the image of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, demonstrated in the German city of Cologne on Saturday against the Turkish government’s policies. Organizers said the rally was aimed in part at protesting against Turkey’s military intervention in northern Syria and what they call the “dictatorial” behavior of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Compiled from wire reports