DHAKA, Bangladesh

Bangladesh’s top court overturned on Tuesday the death sentence of opposition leader ATM Azharul Islam in a case related to crimes against humanity committed during the country’s 1971 war of independence.

A seven-member bench led by Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed issued a unanimous ruling, scrapping its earlier judgment and ordering Islam’s immediate release if he is not wanted in any other case.

Islam, a senior leader of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, was sentenced to death in 2014 by the Dhaka-based International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), which was established in 2009 under former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s administration to try suspects accused of atrocities during the war. She was ousted in a student-led uprising last year.

The tribunal handed down capital punishments to several senior leaders from Jamaat and the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), with six executed. Critics, including opposition parties and global rights groups, have long accused the process of lacking due process and being politically motivated.

Mohammad Shishir Manir, Islam’s lawyer, said the ruling marked a return to justice.

“The truth has been established and the Jamaat leader has been served with justice,” he told reporters outside the court.

According to Manir, the court described the previous verdict as “a travesty of truth in the name of justice” and said it had been issued “without assessing the witnesses and evidence.”

The court had allowed Islam to file a fresh appeal in February.

The ICT, while supported by many in Bangladesh as a means of addressing war-time atrocities, has faced sharp criticism from international human rights groups including the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for failing to meet international fair trial standards.

Islam was sentenced to death in December 2014 on charges including murder, genocide, and other crimes allegedly committed in northern Rangpur during the 1971 conflict.

Jamaat chief Shafiqur Rahman welcomed the court’s decision, saying it vindicated the party’s long-standing claims of political persecution.

He alleged that “then chief justice SK Sinha made the plot of killing the leaders in the direction of Hasina with unlimited fake and fraud evidence and witnesses.”