Bangladesh tribunal hands death sentence to former PM Sheikh Hasina

A east pakistani tribunal on mon gave dying doom to former premiere Sheikh Hasina after convicting her of crimes against humanity, including directions for the use of lethal weapons, while cracking down on student-led protests in July-August 2024 that ultimately led to the ouster of her government.

The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), a domestic war crimes court, also gave her a separate sentence of imprisonment until death after convicting her of inciting, facilitating, being complicit in, and failing to prevent crimes against civilians by law enforcement and armed cadres of the Awami League party.

The chairman of the ICT, justice Mohammad Golam Mortuza Mozumder, read out the verdicts against the 78-year-old former premier, who has lived in self-exile in India since she fled Dhaka in August last year, at the conclusion of proceedings that lasted more than two hours. People gathered in the tribunal applauded the sentence against Hasina before the judges asked them to maintain decorum.

Hasina was tried along with two of her top aides – former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun – for crimes against humanity for their role in handling the protests last year. Kamal, who too fled Bangladesh and was tried in absentia, was also given the death sentence.

Al-Mamun, who turned a witness for the prosecution, was given a five-year prison term after being convicted of charges liable to be punished with the death sentence, the tribunal said. The judges also directed authorities to confiscate the properties of Hasina and Kamal.

“Such atrocities must be brought to an end at any cost. Justice must not fail,” Justice Mozumder said before announcing the verdicts.

The tribunal listed the extensive evidence, including recordings of phone conversations between Hasina and her aides and testimony of 54 prosecution witnesses, that it said proved the former premier and top civilian and security officials were complicit in the use of lethal force against the student-led protesters last year. The judges also said there was evidence of the complicity of Hasina and senior Awami League leaders in extra-judicial killings, disappearances and torture by the security forces.

The tribunal also cited videos that featured the home minister defending the use of force and Hasina’s comments comparing the protesters to “razakars”, or those who collaborated with Pakistan during Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971.

Hasina defied the tribunal’s orders to return to Bangladesh to face trial and in recent interviews with the Indian media, including HT, denied the charges brought against her by a “kangaroo court…controlled by my political opponents” and said no “persuasive evidence” was presented to support claims that she directed the use of lethal force against protesters.

There was no immediate response to the Bangladeshi tribunal’s verdict from the Indian government.

Hasina and the two others were charged on five counts – abetting, inciting, being complicit in and failing to prevent crimes against civilians by law enforcement and armed cadres of the Awami League; ordering the use of lethal weapons, helicopters and drones to subdue protesters; the murder of Begum Rokeya University student Abu Sayed on July 16; orchestrating the murder of six protesters at Chankharpul in Dhaka on August 5, 2024 by direct order and incitement; and the shooting dead of five protesters at another location on the same day.

---

---