COURTROOM ERUPTS IN CHEERS AS BANGLADESH’S HASINA SENTENCED TO DEATH

Mon 17 November 2025:

Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal has sentenced former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to death for crimes against humanity over her government’s violent crackdown on student-led protests last year.

The interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus has called the death sentence for former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina a “historic verdict”.

It also warned that any attempt to create chaos and disorder would be dealt with strictly. “We urge people to remain calm, restrained and responsible,” it said.

Live footage shows people in the courtroom cheering and clapping as the court issued the death sentence for Hasina.

The 78-year-old fugitive politician is on trial in absentia for being the “mastermind and principal architect” behind last year’s suppression of mass demonstrations, in which some 1,400 people were killed.

The 2024 uprising ended Hasina’s 15-year “authoritarian” rule marked by allegations of suppression of dissent, and extrajudicial detentions and killings. She has been in exile in India since losing power and has not been seen in public or online.

The court says the attacks during the student protests last year were “directed against the civilian population”, and “widespread and systematic”.

“Therefore, in the atrocities of killing and gravely injuring protesters, as aforesaid, accused Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina committed crimes against humanity by her incitement order and also failure to take preventive and punitive measures under Charge 1,” it says.

“Accused Sheikh Hasina committed one count of crimes against humanity by her order to use drones, helicopters and lethal weapons under Charge number 2,” the court adds.

Hasina’s now-banned Awami League party has called the Dhaka tribunal a “kangaroo court” and has urged supporters to protest, raising fears of violence in the country.

In a statement carried by AFP news agency, she called the verdicts “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. They are biased and politically motivated,” she said from India.

“I am not afraid to face my accusers in a proper tribunal where evidence can be weighed and tested fairly.”

“The government is directed to pay considerable amount of compensation to the protesters concerned in this case, who have been killed in the July movement 2024 and also to take measures, to pay adequate compensation to the wounded protesters, in consideration of the gravity of their injury and loss,” the court says.

The court says Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun is being awarded leniency for his contribution to the trial, including “material evidence to the tribunal to arrive at the correct decision”.

Bangladesh’s special tribunal sentences former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal to death for crimes against humanity.

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Sheikh Hasina: From political dominance to death sentence