A Bangladesh court on Monday sentenced ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina to death after finding her guilty of crimes against humanity linked to a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising that removed her from power in August 2024.
There were loud cheers in the crowded courtroom as Judge Golam Mortuza Mozumder delivered the verdict, which was broadcast live across the country. Hasina, 78, defied repeated court orders to return from India to stand trial, maintaining that the proceedings were politically motivated.
Reading from the judgment, Judge Mozumder said “all the elements constituting crimes against humanity have been fulfilled,” adding that Hasina was found guilty on three counts: incitement, ordering killings, and failing to prevent atrocities. “We have decided to inflict her with only one sentence — that is, sentence of death,” he declared.
Former interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, also a fugitive, received the same sentence after being convicted on four counts of crimes against humanity. Former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, who appeared in court and pleaded guilty, was sentenced to five years in prison.
Bangladesh has faced escalating unrest since the collapse of Hasina’s autocratic rule, with political tensions deepening ahead of elections expected in February 2026. According to the United Nations, as many as 1,400 people were killed during the crackdown as Hasina struggled to retain power — deaths that formed a central part of the prosecution’s case.
Chief prosecutor Tajul Islam said before the ruling that he hoped the verdict would satisfy the public’s “thirst for justice”. Prosecutors had filed five charges, arguing that Hasina’s failure to prevent widespread killings amounted to crimes against humanity under national law.
The months-long trial proceeded in Hasina’s absence. She rejected the charges, refused to recognise the court’s authority, and described the proceedings as a “jurisprudential joke”. In an interview with AFP in October, she said she believed a guilty verdict was “preordained”.
Security around the Dhaka courthouse was significantly tightened ahead of the announcement, with armoured vehicles and police checkpoints set up across the capital. Nearly half of Dhaka’s 34,000 municipal police officers were deployed amid fears of unrest.
Dhaka has been rocked by a wave of crude bomb attacks in recent weeks, targeting government-linked buildings, buses, and Christian sites. The interim government has also been at odds with India, summoning New Delhi’s envoy earlier this month to demand restrictions on Hasina’s public statements from abroad.
Despite the mounting pressure, Hasina has remained openly defiant. In October, she said she “mourned all the lives lost during the terrible days” of the uprising — remarks that angered critics who accused her of pursuing a brutal, self-serving grip on power. She also warned that the interim government’s ban on her party, the Awami League, was worsening the political crisis in the country of 170 million people as elections draw near.
