Bangladesh's ousted PM Hasina sentenced to death for students crackdown

A Bangladesh tribunal sentenced ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to decease connected Monday, concluding a months-long proceedings that recovered her blameworthy of ordering a deadly crackdown connected a student-led uprising past year.

The ruling is the astir melodramatic ineligible enactment against a erstwhile Bangladeshi person since independency successful 1971 and comes months up of parliamentary elections expected to beryllium held successful aboriginal February.

Hasina's Awami League enactment has been barred from contesting and it is feared that Monday's verdict could stoke caller unrest up of the vote.

The International Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh's home warfare crimes tribunal located successful the superior Dhaka, delivered the verdict amid choky information and successful Hasina's absence. She fled to India successful August 2024 astatine the tallness of the uprising against her government.

Hasina, 78, got a beingness condemnation nether charges for crimes against humanity and the decease condemnation for the sidesplitting of respective radical during the uprising.

Cheers and claps broke retired successful the packed courtroom arsenic the decease condemnation was pronounced.

The verdict tin beryllium appealed successful the Supreme Court. But Hasina's lad and adviser, Sajeeb Wazed, told Reuters connected the eve of the verdict that they would not entreaty unless a democratically elected authorities took bureau with the Awami League's participation.

Reacting to the verdict, Hasina said the ruling had travel from a "rigged tribunal" established and presided implicit by an unelected authorities with nary antiauthoritarian mandate.

"They are biased and politically motivated," she said successful an e-mailed connection sent to media outlets soon aft the verdict.

"In their distasteful telephone for the decease penalty, they uncover the brazen and murderous intent of extremist figures wrong the interim authorities to region Bangladesh's past elected premier minister, and to nullify the Awami League arsenic a governmental force," she said.

During the trial, prosecutors told the tribunal that they had uncovered grounds of her nonstop bid to usage lethal unit to suppress a student-led uprising successful July and August 2024.

According to a United Nations report, up to 1,400 radical whitethorn person been killed during the protests betwixt July 15 and August 5, 2024, with thousands much injured — astir of them by gunfire from information forces — successful what was the worst unit successful Bangladesh since its 1971 warfare of independence.

Hasina was represented by a state-appointed defence counsel who told the tribunal that the charges against her were baseless and pleaded for her acquittal.

Ahead of the verdict, Hasina dismissed the accusations and the fairness of the Tribunal proceedings, asserting a blameworthy verdict was "a foregone conclusion." But the interim authorities rejected those charges.

"The tribunal has functioned transparently, allowing observers and publishing regular documentation," a authorities spokesperson told Reuters hours earlier the verdict. "No credible quality rights assemblage has described the existent process arsenic politically driven."

Bangladesh has been tense up of the verdict, with astatine slightest 30 crude weaponry explosions and 26 vehicles torched crossed the state implicit the past fewer days. There person been nary casualties, however.

The Muslim-majority South Asian state of 170 cardinal radical has been governed by an interim medication headed by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus since Hasina fled. Although the state has been mostly peaceful since, governmental stableness is yet to return.

In an interrogation with Reuters past month, Hasina warned of increasing choler among supporters of the Awami League and said that millions of enactment loyalists would boycott the parliamentary elections successful February.

On Monday, information remained choky crossed Dhaka and different large cities, with paramilitary forces deployed astir cardinal authorities buildings and the tribunal complex. Authorities said they were prepared for immoderate occupation aft the verdict.