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Agence France-Presse

Bangladeshi prosecution lawyers demanded on Thursday that fugitive ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina receive the death penalty in her trial for crimes against humanity.
Hasina has defied court orders to return from India, where she fled last year, to face charges of ordering a deadly crackdown in a failed attempt to crush a student-led uprising.
Up to 1,400 people were killed in the clashes between July and August 2024, according to the United Nations.
“We demand the highest punishment for her,” chief prosecutor Tajul Islam told reporters outside court.
For a single murder, one death penalty is the rule. For 1,400 murders, she should be sentenced 1,400 times
Tajul Islam, chief prosecutor
“For a single murder, one death penalty is the rule. For 1,400 murders, she should be sentenced 1,400 times – but since that is not humanly possible, we demand at least one.”
The prosecution alleges that Hasina, 78, was “the nucleus around whom all the crimes committed during the July-August uprising revolved”.
She is being tried in absentia alongside two former senior officials.


Her ex-interior minister, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, is also a fugitive, while former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun is in custody and has pleaded guilty.
The prosecution said on Thursday that Kamal should also face the death penalty.
The trial, which opened on June 1, has heard months of testimony alleging Hasina’s role in ordering or failing to prevent mass killings.
“Her goal was to cling to power permanently, for herself and her family,” Islam said. “She has turned into a hardened criminal and shows no remorse for the brutality she has committed.”

Prosecutors have filed five charges, including failure to prevent murder, which amount to crimes against humanity under Bangladeshi law.
Hasina’s now-banned Awami League says that she “categorically” denies the charges. She has a state-appointed lawyer but refuses to recognise the court’s authority.
The trial is in its final stages, with the interim government aiming to steer the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million towards elections in February.
Witnesses have included a man whose face was ripped apart by gunshot during the culmination of the protests.
The prosecution also played audio tapes – matched by police with verified recordings of Hasina – that suggested she directly ordered security forces to “use lethal weapons” against protesters and that “wherever they find [them], they will shoot”.

Hasina, already convicted in July for contempt of court and sentenced in absentia to six months in prison, also faces ongoing corruption cases.
Relatives including her daughter Saima Wazed, who has served as a senior UN official, and her niece Tulip Siddiq, a British lawmaker, also face corruption charges, which they deny.
The daughter of a revolutionary who led Bangladesh to independence in 1971, Hasina presided over breakneck economic growth.
Critics accused her government of unjustly jailing her chief rival, passing draconian anti-press freedom laws and perpetrating a litany of rights abuses including the murder of opposition activists.


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Bangladesh

Bangladesh’s ex-PM Sheikh Hasina should be put to death, prosecution demands

Bangladesh’s then prime minister Sheikh Hasina pictured in July last year. Photo: Bangladesh Prime Minister’s Office/AFP

Security forces stand guard near damaged vehicles outside a police station in Dhaka, days after Hasina’s resignation last year. Photo: Reuters

Anti-government protesters display Bangladesh’s national flag as they storm Sheikh Hasina’s palace in Dhaka last August. Photo: AFP/Getty Images/TNS

Bangladesh grapples with political fragmentation ahead of key election

Supporters of Bangladesh’s Jamaat-e-Islami party take part in a protest rally calling for a free and fair election next year, in Dhaka on September 18. Photo: Reuters

Muhammad Yunus’ interim government has been talking to different political parties about conducting elections based on the proportional representation system. Photo: Getty Images/AFP

A man prepares to cast his vote at a polling centre during a general election in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in January 2024. Bangladesh’s next election is set for early 2026. Photo: EPA-EFE

Members of the National Citizen Party demonstrate in front of the residence of Bangladesh’s chief adviser in Dhaka on May 9 demanding a ban on the Awami League party. Photo: EPA-EFE

A year on, Bangladesh’s revolutionaries question gains: ‘is this what we fought for?’

A Bangladeshi man walks past anti-government wall murals along a road in Dhaka. Bangladesh on July 1, 2025, marks one year since students launched protests that culminated weeks later in the overthrow of the government. Photo: AFP

Protesters celebrate beside a defaced portrait of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after news of her resignation, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on August 5, 2024. Photo: AP

Habibur Rahman was permanently blinded in his right eye by a birdshot fired by Bangladeshi security forces. Photo: Sazzad Hossain

Anti-government protestors display Bangladesh’s national flag as they storm Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s palace in Dhaka on August 5. Photo: TNS

Muhammad Yunus, interim head of the Bangladesh government, in January. Yunus is finding it hard to deliver on expectations a year after the uprising. Photo: Reuters

A vendor waits for customers at the vegetable wholesale market in the Shyam Bazar area in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Monday. Momentum for reform has stalled amid high inflation and youth unemployment. Photo: EPA

Barricades and brickbats lie scattered on the road in Gopalganj on July 17, a day after the clashes broke out between supporters of the Awami League party and police during a rally by the National Citizen Party. Photo: AFP

A drone show in Dhaka on July 14 commemorates the uprising that toppled Bangladesh’s former regime. Photo: Sazzad Hossain

Nadira Yeasmin, a feminist college professor and outspoken critic of the shrinking space for women’s rights in Bangladesh, was stripped of her teaching duties after Islamist hardliners demanded her removal over her secular views. Photo: Sazzad Hossain.

Activists of the Hefazat-e Islam protest outside the national mosque in Dhaka in April 2021. Hardline Islamist groups are organising mass rallies, tapping up rural strongholds and shaping public discourse through mosques and madrasas. Photo: AFP

Bangladesh’s new leader dreams big, with China’s backing

Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus. Illustration: Huy Truong

Bangladesh’s then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina addresses a rally in December 2023. Photo: AFP

Protesters run past a burning vehicle set on fire by demonstrators during a rally against Hasina and her government in Dhaka on August 4. Photo: AP

Workers sew garments at a garment factory in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, on April 9. Photo: AFP

Yunus talks to India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on sidelines of the BIMSTEC summit in Bangkok on April 4. Photo: Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser Office of Interim Government / AFP

(Front row, from left) Tulip Siddiq, Bangladesh’s then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina and Russian President Vladimir Putin attend a signing ceremony in Moscow in 2013. Photo: AP 

A Bangladeshi delivery worker poses for a picture on his bike after delivering a food order in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, last year. Photo: AFP

Yunus with his Nobel Peace Prize medal and diploma in 2006. Photo: AP

Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with Yunus during their meeting in Beijing last month. Photo: Xinhua/EPA-EFE

A student protester shouts slogans as demonstrators wave Bangladesh’s national flag during a rally in September to mark one month since the ousting of Sheikh Hasina. Photo: AFP

Security personnel stand guard as people march down a street during celebrations marking Bengali New Year in Dhaka on April 14. Photo: AFP

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Prosecutors allege that the fugitive ex-prime minister is responsible for the deaths of up to 1,400 people in last year’s uprising


Prosecutors allege that the fugitive ex-prime minister is responsible for the deaths of up to 1,400 people in last year’s uprising.
