Dhaka (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – A Bangladesh court sentenced exiled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to death on Monday, concluding a months-long trial that found her guilty of crimes against humanity for the violent suppression of student demonstrations last year that led to the collapse of her rule.
Hasina was tried in her absence since she is living in exile in India. She has been there since being forced out of power. A special tribunal found that she was responsible for ordering a violent response to student-led protests last year. The UN estimates that up to 1,400 people died during these protests, most from gunfire by security forces, Reuters reported.
Why did the tribunal convict Sheikh Hasina in absentia?
The court listed all charges against the accused and explained the extent of the violence in the police action. A panel of three judges from the International Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh’s domestic war crimes court, announced their verdict. They found that Hasina was responsible for encouraging hundreds of extrajudicial killings carried out by law enforcement, CNN reported.
The courtroom, where some victims’ families were present, erupted in applause as the judges read their sentence.
“Sheikh Hasina committed crimes against humanity by her incitement, order and failure to take punitive measures,”
one of the judges said as he delivered her verdict.
It was “crystal clear” that she “expressed her incitement to the activists of her party… and furthermore, she expressed that she ordered to kill and eliminate the protesting students,” the judges stated.
Former police inspector general Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun is the only person accused who is in court today. Chowdhury pleaded guilty in July for his role in the uprising last year and has testified as a state’s witness. Hasina and another co-accused, former interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, have both gone into hiding.
How did the student protests escalate into mass violence?
What started as peaceful student protests about civil service job quotas last year turned into a nationwide call for Hasina’s resignation. A government crackdown that may have killed up to 1,400 people marked the turning point, according to the UN human rights office.
Hasina, who governed Bangladesh for 15 years, has been in New Delhi since August last year after student protesters ousted her and her Awami League party from power. The interim Bangladeshi government has officially asked for her extradition, but New Delhi has not yet replied to the request.
What evidence linked Hasina to orders for lethal force?
Sheikh Hasina reportedly issued an explicit order to use lethal force against students protesting her government’s policies last year, instructing to shoot “wherever they find them,” according to her personal phone call recordings obtained by Al Jazeera.
The Al Jazeera Investigative Unit (I-Unit) enlisted audio forensic experts to examine the recordings for signs of AI manipulation, successfully identifying the callers through voice matching. In a recording from July 18 by the National Telecommunications Monitoring Centre (NTMC), Hasina informed an ally that she had directed her security forces to use lethal force.
“My instructions have already been given. I’ve issued an open order completely. Now they will use lethal weapons, shoot wherever they find them,”
she expressed..
“That has been instructed. I have stopped them so far … I was thinking about the students’ safety.”
Later, during the call with Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh, the mayor of Dhaka South and a relative of former Prime Minister Hasina, the discussion included the use of helicopters to suppress demonstrations.
“Wherever they notice any gathering, it’s from above – now it’s being done from above – it has already started in several places. It has begun. Some [protesters] have moved.”
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