Pecohub A special tribunal in Bangladesh has sentenced former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to death after a months-long trial that found her guilty of ordering a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising last year.
The International Crimes Tribunal in capital Dhaka, which tried Hasina, 78, and two others for charges related to crimes against humanity, handed down the sentence on Monday.
The United Nations says up to 1,400 people were killed and thousands injured as Hasina’s government cracked down on protesters last year in a desperate bid to cling to power.
The highly anticipated ruling, which was broadcast live on national television, came less than three months before the first elections in the South Asian country of 170 million people since her overthrow and escape to India in August 2024.
“All the… elements constituting crimes against humanity have been fulfilled,” judge Golam Mortuza Mozumder read to the court in Dhaka, finding the former leader guilty on three counts: incitement, order to kill, and inaction to prevent the atrocities.
“We have decided to inflict her with only one sentence – that is, sentence of death.”
Former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan was also sentenced to death in absentia after being found guilty on four counts of crimes against humanity, while former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, who was in court and had pleaded guilty, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.
People in the packed courtroom – including families of victims – cheered and clapped, and some in the crowds outside sank to their knees and offered up prayers after the verdict, the harshest against a leader in the country’s history.
