1 of 2 | Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina speaks at a conference in Tokyo in 2019. Now deposed, she faces the death penalty in Bangladesh. File Photo by Keizo Mori/UPI | License Photo
Prosecutors in Bangladesh are seeking the death penalty for former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for the deaths of 1,400 people during a student protest last year that ended in her ouster.
A leaked audio clip allegedly recorded Hasina ordering police to “use lethal weapons” against student protesters. She faces charges for crimes against humanity and fled to India in August 2024.
“Sheikh Hasina is the mastermind of all the crimes. She is a heartless criminal,” said Muhammad Tajul Islam, chief prosecutor of the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal, the Times of India reported. “She deserves the maximum punishment. For the murder of 1,400 people, she ought to have been hanged 1,400 times.”
The protests erupted in July 2024 against civil service job quotas for those who fought in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War against East Pakistan. The students wanted the jobs to be based on merit. But the protests turned into a call to overthrow Hasina.
Her “goal was to cling to power permanently, for herself and her family,” Islam told the court Thursday, according to the BBC. “She has turned into a hardened criminal and shows no remorse for the brutality she has committed.”
On Aug. 5, 2024, Hasina fled by helicopter to India as crowds stormed her home. Police killed at least 52 people that day in Dhaka, the BBC reported.
Hasina’s state-appointed lawyer said the police were forced to fire in response to violence.
Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, Hasina’s former interior minister, and former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun also face charges. Prosecutors want the death penalty for Kamal, who is also in hiding. Al-Mamun pleaded guilty in July but hasn’t been sentenced, the BBC reported.
Hasina also faces corruption charges and has been sentenced to six months in prison for contempt of court.
Bangladesh’s next elections are scheduled for February. Hasina’s party, Awami League, is banned from all activities and can’t run in any elections.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee in February said Hasina’s government systematically committed “serious human rights violations.”
“The brutal response was a calculated and well-coordinated strategy by the former government to hold onto power in the face of mass opposition,” Human rights chief Volker Turk said.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe hundreds of extrajudicial killings, extensive arbitrary arrests and detentions, and torture, were carried out with the knowledge, coordination and direction of the political leadership and senior security officials as part of a strategy to suppress the protests.”
The report said up to 13% of those killed between July 1 and Aug. 15 were children.
