Will Bangladesh’s Hasina face the hangman?

To picture the disgraced erstwhile person of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, 1 mightiness telephone her, astatine the precise least, complicated. Once a pro-democracy advocate, a operator of the economy, she morphed into an alleged authoritarian accused of immense corruption. Now sentenced to death, determination is, for some, a tendency to spot Hasina hang.

Born successful 1947 successful what was past East Pakistan, Hasina is the girl of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led Bangladesh’s combat for independency against Pakistan successful 1971.

In 1990, Hasina joined her rival, Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), to pb a fashionable uprising that toppled subject ruler Hussain Muhammad Ershad.

Hasina became premier curate successful 1996 nether the Awami League enactment earlier losing to Zia successful 2001. She was re-elected successful 2008. She won again successful 2014, successful a ballot boycotted by the main opposition. And, successful 2018, she won contempt vote-rigging allegations. That aforesaid year, Zia was imprisoned for corruption. (She was acquitted successful January 2025, aft Hasina was forced from office.)

Since 2009, the system nether Hasina grew an mean of much than 6 percent a year, the garment manufacture a mainstay.

But her tenure was marred by accusations she utilized her information forces, including the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), to abduct and termination absorption members and dissenters. In 2021, the US sanctioned the RAB, accusing it of hundreds of disappearances and extrajudicial killings. Hasina has denied immoderate role.

In July 2024, pupil protests implicit a authorities enactment task transformed into an uprising. The UN says much than 1,400 protesters were killed, chiefly by information forces.

On August 5, 2024, Hasina resigned and escaped to India successful a subject helicopter. She’s since been convicted, successful absentia, of crimes against humanity and sentenced to hang. Bangladesh’s interim authorities asked India successful December 2024 to extradite her, but there’s been nary ceremonial response. They asked again connected November 21, 2025. Whether Hasina volition ever look justness is anyone’s guess.

Today, Bangladesh’s interim leader, Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Prize economist, says much than $230bn disappeared from authorities coffers during Hasina’s years successful office. The adjacent wide predetermination is expected successful aboriginal 2026, astatine which constituent whoever takes bureau volition apt privation to trial India’s resoluteness for keeping Hasina safe.