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| Former prime minister Sheikh Hasina |
A Bangladesh tribunal has delivered a political thunderclap: former prime minister Sheikh Hasina has been convicted in absentia of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death for allegedly masterminding the brutal state crackdown on last year’s student-led July Uprising that toppled her 15-year rule.
The verdict, the first time any Bangladeshi leader has been found guilty of such grave offences, was handed down in Dhaka after months of hearings dominated by chilling testimony and thousands of pages of evidence.
Prosecutors argued that under Hasina’s direct command, security forces unleashed lethal violence, including firing live rounds from helicopters and drones, killing hundreds of unarmed protesters and destroying bodies to wipe out proof.
Hasina, who fled to India in August 2024 as protests overwhelmed the state machinery and paved the way for Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus’s interim government, now faces the prospect of a death sentence abroad. A UN rights office report later estimated that as many as 1,400 people were killed in the crackdown as the regime clung frantically to power.
What the prosecution said
Investigators submitted more than 8,700 pages of evidence, alongside a 2,724-name list of alleged victims. Witnesses painted a nightmarish picture: forces shooting at crowds from the air, injured protesters blocked from medical help, and bodies allegedly burned in Ashulia to erase identities.
The five charges paint a devastating portrait of systemic repression:
The tribunal concluded that Hasina, then home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, and ex–IGP Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun oversaw coordinated killings across Dhaka. Survivors testified that bullets “rained from above” during demonstrations, a claim unprecedented in Bangladesh’s legal history.
An emblematic case in the indictment is the killing of 22-year-old student leader Abu Sayed of Begum Rokeya University, presented as evidence of targeted attacks on campus activists.
Prosecutors alleged five protesters were shot dead and their bodies incinerated to destroy evidence, an accusation the defence insists is fabricated.
Hasina and her co-accused are charged with directing a coordinated assault in Chankharpul where six unarmed demonstrators were allegedly gunned down by law enforcement and ruling-party supporters.
Hasina hits back
Now 78, Hasina dismissed the trial as a “jurisprudential joke,” accusing Yunus of engineering her political downfall. In a written statement before the verdict, she conceded the crisis spiralled beyond control but insisted: “I never issued any order to fire on unarmed civilians.”
By - OpIndia
