Bangladesh's ousted PM Hasina sentenced to death for students crackdown

A Bangladesh court sentenced ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina to death on Monday, concluding a months-long trial that found her guilty of ordering a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising last year.

Sheikh Hasina Wajid’s Awami League party has been barred from contesting and it is feared that Monday’s verdict could stoke fresh unrest ahead of the vote.

The International Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh’s domestic war crimes court located in the capital Dhaka, delivered the verdict amid tight security and in Hasina’s absence after she fled to India in August 2024.

Sheikh Hasina Wajid got a life sentence under charges for crimes against humanity and the death sentence for the killing of several people during the uprising.

There was cheering and clapping in the court after the death sentence was pronounced.

The verdict can be appealed in the Supreme Court.

But Sheikh Hasina Wajid’s son and adviser, Sajeeb Wazed, told Reuters on the eve of the verdict that they would not appeal unless a democratically elected government took office with the Awami League’s participation.

During the trial, prosecutors told the court that they had uncovered evidence of her direct command to use lethal force to suppress a student-led uprising in July and August 2024.

According to a United Nations report, up to 1,400 people may have been killed during the protests between July 15 and August 5, 2024, with thousands more injured — most of them by gunfire from security forces — in what was the worst violence in Bangladesh since its 1971 war of independence.

Hasina was represented by a state-appointed defence counsel who told the court that the charges against her were baseless and pleaded for her acquittal.

Ahead of the verdict, Sheikh Hasina Wajid dismissed the accusations and the fairness of the Tribunal proceedings, asserting a guilty verdict was “a foregone conclusion.”

Strict security measures are put in place across Bangladesh.