Updated November 17, 2025 at 1:27 PM PST
A court in Bangladesh sentenced ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to death for crimes against humanity on Monday, for her role in a crackdown on last year's student-led uprising which the United Nations says left up to 1,400 people dead.
The country's International Crimes Tribunal, a domestic war crimes court in the capital Dhaka, also sentenced Hasina's home minister, Asaduzzaman Khan, to death.
A three-member tribunal announced the ruling in a session that was broadcast live and lasted several hours.
Hasina and Khan fled to India in August last year and were sentenced in absentia. A third suspect, a former police chief, was sentenced to five years in prison after becoming a state witness against Hasina and pleading guilty to crimes against humanity.
The ICT was set up in 2009 to investigate and prosecute those accused of war crimes during Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. At the time of its creation, it was accused by Human Rights Watch and other groups of not meeting international standards. On Monday, HRW's South Asia deputy director Meenakshi Ganguly posted on social media: "Bangladesh should ensure a credible justice system, abolish capital punishment."
Chief Prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam insists that Hasina — who was found guilty, among other charges, of ordering the use of lethal force by her security services — received a fair trial.
"Our tribunal was developed in line with the Nuremberg trials. It has met all international standards. No one can point to anywhere where those standards have not been met," he told NPR. "Their defense lawyer was given enough time to come up with the response. He could not take instruction from the accused as they are fugitives. If they had been present, they could have given their testimonies and provided further witnesses, and they would have been given further time as per the law."
Hasina, 78, denounced the verdict as biased and politically motivated. She released a statement through a public relations firm, saying: "The verdicts announced against me have been made by a rigged tribunal established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate. ... 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. ... I was given no fair chance to defend myself in court, nor even to have lawyers of my own choice represent me in absentia."
Pent-up grievance about corruption in the government prompted the protesters — many of them young people — to revolt. The uprising started in July 2024, with demands to abolish government job allocations. It later morphed into a wider anti-government movement and ended with Hasina resigning her post after 15 years in power and fleeing in a helicopter.
Monday's verdict comes as the country continues to grapple with instability and violence, with tensions mounting in the days ahead of the ruling.
The interim government, led by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, stepped up security, with paramilitary border guards and police deployed in Dhaka and many other parts of the country, and soldiers surrounding the tribunal premises.
Experts believe the verdict will likely reignite the cycle of violence that has come to characterize Bangladeshi politics.
Naomi Hossain, a development studies professor at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies told NPR: "After the uprising, we might have had a process of justice and peace and reconciliation. We didn't have that. We've had the same as before. We call it accountability, but it's more like political revenge."
She added: "What really matters is, many people think that this is a kind of justice and that no other kind of justice was going to be achieved."
Yunus has banned the activities of Hasina's Awami League party ahead of elections set for February.
In a statement following the verdict, Bangladesh's Ministry of Home Affairs urged India to extradite both Hasina and Khan soon. India's Foreign Ministry in a statement acknowledged the tribunal's verdict but fell short of stating whether it would hand them over to Dhaka.
Hasina cannot appeal the verdict unless she returns to Bangladesh — a move that could further ignite the country's political turmoil.
Copyright 2025 NPR