Bangladesh: After the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) sentenced former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to death on Monday, November 17, she issued a statement calling the ruling “biased” and “politically motivated.”

“The verdicts announced against me have been made by a rigged tribunal established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate,” her statement read.

Currently hiding in New Delhi, Hasina denied all charges against her, claiming that they are a ploy by the ruling government.

“For the record, I wholly deny the accusations that have been made against me in the ICT. I mourn all of the deaths that occurred in July and August of last year, on both sides of the political divide. But neither I nor other political leaders ordered the killing of protestors.”

Stating that she was not given a fair chance to defend herself in court, the former PM slammed the ICT by saying, “there is nothing international about the ICT; nor is it in any way impartial.”

Events leading to Hasina’s death sentence

During her time as the prime minister of Bangladesh, critics accused her of arresting political rivals, overseeing large-scale human rights abuses, including the deaths of the student protestors, and enacting harsh anti-press laws.

However, the trial was specifically held for the death of 1,400 people in July and August 2024, according to the United Nations.

Termed as the July massacre, the deaths were a result of the revolution triggered after the reinstatement of the controversial quota system by the Hasina-led Awami League party.

Willing to face trial outside Bangladesh: Hasina

Hasina said in her statement that any senior judges or advocates who had “expressed any sympathy for the previous government have been removed or intimidated into silence.”

She added that such prosecution was never done to any perpetrators from other parties or even to investigate documented violence against religious minorities, indigenous people, or journalists.

The former Bangladeshi Prime Minister stated that the guilty verdict was already decided, and she’s willing to participate in a new trial outside her home country. Hasina expressed confidence in facing her accusers in a fair tribunal where evidence can be properly examined, citing the International Criminal Court in Hague.

“The interim government will not accept this challenge, because it knows that the ICC would acquit me,” adding that the ICC will scrutinize the current government’s own human rights breaches.

She claimed that her government at the time had “lost control of the situation”, and to call it a premeditated assault on citizens is an affront.

The statement also disputed the UN’s “much-quoted fatality estimate of 1,400 deaths.”

Bangladeshi govt calls sheltering Hasina an ‘Unfriendly act’

Bangladesh’s interim government on Monday urged India to immediately extradite deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, hours after a special tribunal sentenced them to death in absentia for “crimes against humanity”.

The ministry also said that granting shelter to individuals convicted of crimes against humanity would be considered an “unfriendly” act and a disregard for justice.

Separately, Legal Adviser Asif Nazrul stated that the interim government will write a letter to India again to extradite Hasina.

“If India continues to shelter this mass murderer, then India must understand that it is an act of hostility…,” Nazrul was quoted as saying by the Bangla-language daily Prothom Alo.

(With inputs from PTI)

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