For crimes against humanity. She, ‘a political sentence’
Exiled former Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Hasina has been sentenced to death for crimes against humanity over her bloody crackdown on anti-government protests last year. Hasina was tried in absentia: she lives in exile in India.
The former prime minister, writes the AFP, was “found guilty of three charges”, including incitement, order to kill and inaction to prevent the atrocities, judge Golam Mortuza Mozumder read to the packed courtroom in Dhaka.
“We have decided to inflict only one sentence on her, namely the death penalty.”
“The verdicts pronounced against me were issued by a rigged court, established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate,” Hasina said in a statement released from her hideout in India.
“They are biased and politically motivated.”
Bangladesh’s special court also sentenced former Interior Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal to death for crimes against humanity, while the other co-accused, former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, was sentenced to five years. Kamal, like Hasina, is a fugitive. Al-Mamun, who was instead in pre-trial detention, was granted leniency for his contribution to the trial, including providing “material evidence to the court to reach the correct decision”.
The court, Al-Jazeera reports, said attacks during last year’s student protests were “directed against the civilian population” and “widespread and systematic.”
“Therefore, in the atrocities of killing and seriously injuring protesters, as mentioned above, the accused Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has committed crimes against humanity with her order of incitement and also for failure to take preventive and punitive measures, it states. “The accused Sheikh Hasina has committed crimes against humanity with her order to use drones, helicopters and lethal weapons, the court further added.
