Bangladeshi judges have found former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina guilty of crimes against humanity for the violent repression of anti-government protests in 2024. DW has the latest.The former leader has been sentenced to death by a court in Dhaka
Hasina, in exile in India, refused to return to Bangladesh for the trial
Bangladesh’s government beefed up security ahead of the verdict
Hasina’s Awami League party called for a nationwide shutdown
Bangladesh: Hasina sentenced to death over protest crackdown
Farah Bahgat | Kate Hairsine with AP, Reuters, AFP, dpa
Published 5 hours agoPublished 5 hours agolast updated 39 minutes agolast updated 39 minutes ago
Bangladeshi judges have found former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina guilty of crimes against humanity for the violent repression of anti-government protests in 2024. DW has the latest.
Hasina was seen as pro-democracy until her rule became increasingly authoritarian
What you need to know
The former leader has been sentenced to death by a court in Dhaka
Hasina, in exile in India, refused to return to Bangladesh for the trial
Bangladesh’s government beefed up security ahead of the verdict
Hasina’s Awami League party called for a nationwide shutdown
Sheikh Hasina reacts to the verdict from India
Sheikh Hasina defied court orders to return from India and has consistently refused to recognize the court’s authority [
Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called the verdict and sentencing in her crimes against humanity trial “biased and politically motivated.”
Hasina refused to return from exile in India to attend the trial in Bangladesh, where she was assigned a state-appointed lawyer.
“The verdicts announced against me have been made by a rigged tribunal established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate,” Hasina said in a five-page statement issued from hiding in India.
Hasina, instead, said she would be willing to attend a fresh trial outside Bangladesh.
“I am not afraid to face my accusers in a proper tribunal where the evidence can be weighed and tested fairly,” she said.
“That is why I have repeatedly challenged the interim government to bring these charges before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.”
Earlier this month, Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry summoned India’s envoy to Dhaka to demand that New Delhi block the “notorious fugitive” Hasina from talking to journalists and “granting her a platform to spew hatred.”
