Bangladesh tribunal sentences Sheikh Hasina to dying : NPR

A court docket in Bangladesh sentenced ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to dying for crimes towards humanity on Monday, for her position in a crackdown on final yr’s student-led rebellion which the United Nations says left as much as 1,400 individuals useless.

The nation’s Worldwide Crimes Tribunal, a home conflict crimes court docket within the capital Dhaka, additionally sentenced Hasina’s residence minister, Asaduzzaman Khan, to dying.

A 3-member tribunal introduced the ruling in a session that was broadcast stay and lasted a number of hours.

Hasina and Khan fled to India in August final yr and have been sentenced in absentia. A 3rd suspect, a former police chief, was sentenced to 5 years in jail after changing into a state witness towards Hasina and pleading responsible to crimes towards humanity.

The ICT was arrange in 2009 to research and prosecute these accused of conflict crimes throughout Bangladesh’s 1971 conflict of independence from Pakistan. On the time of its creation, it was accused by Human Rights Watch and different teams of not assembly worldwide requirements. On Monday, HRW’s South Asia deputy director Meenakshi Ganguly posted on social media: “Bangladesh ought to guarantee a reputable justice system, abolish capital punishment.”

Chief Prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam insists that Hasina — who was discovered responsible, amongst different fees, of ordering the usage of deadly drive by her safety companies — obtained a good trial.

“Our tribunal was developed in step with the Nuremberg trials. It has met all worldwide requirements. Nobody can level to anyplace the place these requirements haven’t been met,” he instructed NPR. “Their protection lawyer was given sufficient time to provide you with the response. He couldn’t take instruction from the accused as they’re fugitives. If they’d been current, they may have given their testimonies and offered additional witnesses, and they’d have been given additional time as per the regulation.”

Hasina, 78, denounced the decision as biased and politically motivated. She launched a press release by way of a public relations agency, saying: “The verdicts introduced towards me have been made by a rigged tribunal established and presided over by an unelected authorities with no democratic mandate. … I wholly deny the accusations which were made towards me within the ICT. I mourn all the deaths that occurred in July and August of final yr, on either side of the political divide. However neither I nor different political leaders ordered the killing of protestors. … I used to be given no honest probability to defend myself in court docket, nor even to have attorneys of my very own alternative signify me in absentia.”

Pent-up grievance about corruption within the authorities prompted the protesters — a lot of them younger individuals — to revolt. The rebellion began in July 2024, with calls for to abolish authorities job allocations. It later morphed right into a wider anti-government motion and ended with Hasina resigning her put up after 15 years in energy and fleeing in a helicopter.

Monday’s verdict comes because the nation continues to grapple with instability and violence, with tensions mounting within the days forward of the ruling.

The interim authorities, led by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, stepped up safety, with paramilitary border guards and police deployed in Dhaka and lots of different components of the nation, and troopers surrounding the tribunal premises.

Consultants consider the decision will seemingly reignite the cycle of violence that has come to characterize Bangladeshi politics.

Naomi Hossain, a growth research professor on the College of London’s Faculty of Oriental and African Research instructed NPR: “After the rebellion, we would have had a strategy of justice and peace and reconciliation. We did not have that. We have had the identical as earlier than. We name it accountability, nevertheless it’s extra like political revenge.”

She added: “What actually issues is, many individuals suppose that this can be a sort of justice and that no different sort of justice was going to be achieved.”

Yunus has banned the actions of Hasina’s Awami League occasion forward of elections set for February.

In a press release following the decision, Bangladesh’s Ministry of Residence Affairs urged India to extradite each Hasina and Khan quickly. India’s Overseas Ministry in a press release acknowledged the tribunal’s verdict however fell wanting stating whether or not it could hand them over to Dhaka.

Hasina can not attraction the decision until she returns to Bangladesh — a transfer that would additional ignite the nation’s political turmoil.