Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been sentenced to death after being found guilty of authorising a lethal police operation on student-led protesters last year.
Prosecutors argued Hasina’s crackdown on anti-government protesters killed up to 1,400 people.
Hasina was tried in absentia, having fled to India last year.
The former PM denies the allegations and called the court “biased and politically motivated”.
Sheikh Hasina
Hasina served as Bangladesh’s Prime Minister for two decades. She was first elected in 1996, serving until 2001, and then returned to power in 2009, winning four consecutive terms.
She resigned and fled the country following nationwide protests in July last year.
India has ignored requests for her extradition.
The protests
Last year, tens of thousands of students protested across Bangladesh, calling for an end to the public service quota system.
The system reserved more than 30% of government jobs for families of veterans who served in the country’s 1971 war of independence.
The quota system was previously suspended in 2018 following similar protests, but was reinstated in June 2024 by the country’s High Court.
Demonstrators called for the system to be scrapped, arguing that public service roles should be appointed based on merit, not heritage.
The Government deployed riot police to shut down protests. Footage showed police using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse crowds.
More than 11,700 people were arrested and detained.
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Report
Following Hasina resigning and leaving the country, interim authorities asked the UN human rights office to investigate her Government’s response to the protests.
The human rights body published its report in February, finding “reasonable grounds” to believe Hasina’s Government committed serious human rights violations.
The accusations include “hundreds of extrajudicial killings... extensive arbitrary arrest and detention, and torture and other forms of ill-treatment”.
The UN found these acts were “carried out with the knowledge, coordination and direction” of Hasina and fellow officials.
At trial, Hasina was found guilty human rights violations, including orchestrating mass killings of protesters, authorising deadly air and ground attacks, and failing to prevent killings. She was sentenced to death on the charge of authorising air and ground attacks.
Hasina’s former Home Affairs Minister, Asaduzzaman Khan, was also found guilty of orchestrating mass killings and sentenced to death.
Former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun was found guilty of the first charge and was sentenced to five years in prison.
Al-Mamun was the only one of the three accused to be present.
His sentence was reduced because he cooperated with the trial, giving important evidence.
Hasina
In a statement, Hasina called the sentence the outcome of “a rigged tribunal,” which she said “never intended to achieve justice or provide any genuine insight” into the protests.
She said she had been “given no fair chance to defend [herself] in court”.
Accusing the tribunal of having “no other motive than the personal pursuit of revenge,” Hasina said the Government denied her repeated requests to sue her in the International Criminal Court.
It remains unclear whether Hasina will appeal the decision.
