Bangladesh’s ousted leader Sheikh Hasina has been formally charged with crimes against humanity after being accused of ordering a deadly crackdown against anti-government protests last year that left more than 1,400 people dead.
Hasina, who fled the country on 5 August last year, was charged in absentia by a three-judge panel on Thursday. She remains in hiding in neighbouring India and has ignored formal requests for her to return.
Bangladeshi prosecutors have spent months gathering evidence to bring Hasina to trial for alleged crimes committed during her 15 years in power, including the mass killing of students who rose up against her authoritarian regime in July last year.
The panel, called the international crimes tribunal, indicted Hasina, her former interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan and the former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah al-Mamun on five charges, including crimes against humanity.
Prosecutors allege that Hasina was the “mastermind, conductor and superior commander” of the targeted violence against student-led protests that erupted across Bangladesh and eventually led to the fall of her government.
As widely documented by human rights groups, the police fired live ammunition at protesters across the country, leading to mass casualties, and arbitrarily arrested tens of thousands of civilians in an attempt to crush the uprising.
Lawyers have argued that orders for the killings came directly from Hasina, citing leaked audio files and other documents left behind when she fled the country in a helicopter.
Hasina’s Awami League party condemned the indictment and described the tribunal as a kangaroo court, despite Hasina having established it in 2009 to investigate crimes committed during the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence.
“We condemn in strongest term the indictment against our party president and other leaders as we assert that this step marks another testament to the ongoing witch hunt against our party,” the party wrote on X.
The tribunal has already issued three arrest warrants for Hasina. It also sentenced her to six months in jail earlier this month for contempt of court after a leaked audio recording emerged of her saying: “There are 227 cases against me, so I now have a licence to kill 227 people.”
Hasina’s trial for crimes against humanity charges will begin on 3 August. Prosecutors said al-Mamun had already pleaded guilty and had agreed to testify as a state witness against his accomplices.
It remains unclear whether Hasina will be forcibly brought back to Bangladesh to face the mounting accusations against her, including widespread corruption. The interim government, led Mohammad Yunus, confirmed it had sent India several extradition requests, but that they had so far been ignored.
Yunus’s government has expressed repeated frustration at India for continuing to give Hasina – who was closely allied to Delhi while in power – a safe haven and allowing her to make “false statements” intended to destabilise the country.
Yunus has pledged that Bangladesh will have its first election since Hasina’s fall by April 2026, but the Awami League has been banned from taking part.
