Sheikh Hasina sentenced to death for crimes against humanity

Ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. (Photo/AA)

A Bangladesh court on Monday sentenced ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina to death for crimes against humanity, with cheers breaking out in the packed court as the judge read out the verdict.

Hasina, 78, defied court orders that she return from India to attend her trial about whether she ordered a deadly crackdown against a student-led uprising that ousted her.

The highly anticipated ruling, which was broadcast live on national television, comes ahead of the first polls since her overthrow in August 2024.

"All the... elements constituting crimes against humanity have been fulfilled," judge Golam Mortuza Mozumder read to the packed court in Dhaka.

Hasina was "found guilty on three counts", including incitement, order to kill, and inaction to prevent the atrocities, Mozumder said.

"We have decided to inflict her with only one sentence — that is, sentence of death."

‘Crime against humanity’

Former interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, also a fugitive, was also sentenced to death, after being found guilty on four counts of crimes against humanity.

Former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, who was in court and had pleaded guilty, was sentenced to five years' imprisonment.

The United Nations says up to 1,400 people were killed in crackdowns as Hasina tried to cling to power, deaths that were central to her trial.

Chief prosecutor Tajul Islam, speaking ahead of the verdict, said he had hoped that the people's "thirst for justice will be fulfilled, and that this verdict will mark an end to crimes against humanity".

Prosecutors filed five charges, including failure to prevent murder, amounting to crimes against humanity under Bangladeshi law.

Sheikh Hasina on Monday called the guilty verdict and death sentence in her crimes against humanity trial "biased and politically motivated".

"The verdicts announced against me have been made by a rigged tribunal established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate," Hasina said in a statement issued from hiding in India.

"They are biased and politically motivated."

"I am not afraid to face my accusers in a proper tribunal where evidence can be weighed and tested fairly," Hasina said in a statement.

Source: TRT