A war crimes court on Monday sentenced ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina to death after finding her guilty of ordering a deadly crackdown on last year’s student-led uprising.
Prosecutors in Bangladesh were seeking the death penalty for Hasina in a trial that lasted months, accusing her of ordering the use of lethal force against student protesters, resulting in up to 1,400 deaths.
The tribunal also sentenced the former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan to death, and a third suspect – a former police chief – was sentenced to five years in prison after he became a state witness against Hasina and pleaded guilty. The deliberation of the verdict from the tribunal in the capital, Dhaka, was broadcast live.
Hasina’s Awami League party has called for a nationwide shutdown to protest against the verdict.
Last month, she told The Independent that she would “neither be surprised nor intimidated” if Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) sentenced her to death, calling the proceedings “a sham trial” driven by political vengeance.
Hasina has been in exile in India since fleeing Bangladesh on 5 August last year.
There were cheers and applause in the courtroom as the death sentence was announced, according to Reuters. The ruling can be appealed against before the Supreme Court. However, Hasina’s son and adviser, Sajeeb Wazed, told the news agency on the eve of the verdict that they would not pursue an appeal unless a democratically elected government, with the Awami League participating, is in place.
After sentencing, Hasina said the verdict against her was delivered by a “rigged tribunal” that she claimed was set up and run by an “unelected government with no democratic mandate”. She also called the verdict “biased” and “politically motivated”, adding that she had been denied any fair opportunity to defend herself in court.
“I am not afraid to face my accusers in a proper tribunal where evidence can be weighed and tested fairly,” Hasina said.
Bangladesh’s interim government had tightened security in the capital and beyond as the country awaited the verdict. Paramilitary border guards and police fanned out across Dhaka and other regions as Hasina’s Awami League called for a nationwide shutdown on Monday, denouncing the tribunal as a “kangaroo court”.
Chief prosecutor Tajul Islam called Hasina the “mastermind and principal architect” of the alleged crimes against humanity committed during the uprising against her.
The ruling comes just months before parliamentary elections scheduled for early February, with the tribunal’s governing law allowing the maximum sentence of death.
Dhaka police chief Sheikh Mohammad Sazzat Ali authorised a “shoot-on-sight” response against anyone attempting to torch vehicles or throw crude bombs, as the country reeled from nearly 50 arson attacks and dozens of bomb blasts reported in the last week. Two people have been killed in the violence, according to local media.
Earlier, Hasina, in an audio message, had urged her supporters not to be “nervous” about the verdict.
Last month, when The Independent asked her if she would apologise to the families of protesters killed last year, she said she mourned “each and every child, sibling, cousin and friend we lost as a nation” and would “continue to offer my condolences”. But she rejected the allegation that she ordered police to shoot demonstrators, and said the unelected interim government, led by the Nobel peace prize laureate Muhammad Yunus since August, was unfairly denying her party the opportunity to contest new elections.
At the heart of the student protests that began in July last year was the demand to scrap a quota system that reserved up to 30 per cent of government jobs for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971 against Pakistan.
Tensions escalated when students at Dhaka University, the country’s largest, clashed with police and a counter-protest inflamed the situation. The movement claims the protests were peaceful until the student wing of Hasina’s ruling Awami League party attacked them.
Thomas Kean, a senior consultant on Bangladesh for the non-profit International Crisis Group, said: “The political repercussions of this verdict are significant. The prospect of Sheikh Hasina mounting a political comeback in Bangladesh now appears very slim. But as long as she refuses to give up control of the Awami League, the party is unlikely to be allowed back into the political arena.
“A spate of recent bombings and the Awami League’s call for a nationwide ‘lockdown’ have put the country on edge as it nears much-anticipated national elections scheduled for February 2026. The Awami League should desist from acts of violence, and the interim government must avoid heavy-handed crackdowns against party supporters.”
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