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By Brian Kiprono and Agencies - Reporter
November, 17 2025 - Bangladesh’s ousted former prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, has been sentenced to death in absentia after a special tribunal found her guilty of ordering a deadly crackdown on last year’s student-led protests. The ruling, delivered in Dhaka on Monday, has deepened political tensions and raised fresh concerns ahead of the country’s February elections.
The verdict, delivered by the International Crimes Tribunal in Dhaka under tight security, marks the harshest punishment ever imposed on a Bangladeshi leader. Hasina, who ruled for 15 years before being toppled in August 2024, fled to India as protests swept the country. A United Nations report later estimated that up to 1,400 people were killed between July and early August in what became the deadliest unrest since the country’s 1971 independence war.
Inside the packed courtroom, relatives of victims wept, prayed and applauded as the sentence was read. Outside, crowds gathered in tense silence, aware of the potential for renewed violence ahead of February’s general election, a poll already overshadowed by a ban on Hasina’s Awami League party.
Judge Golam Mortuza Mozumder found the 78-year-old guilty of incitement, ordering killings and failing to prevent atrocities. Former interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal received the same sentence, while a former police chief who testified against Hasina was handed a five-year term.
Hasina, issuing a statement from an undisclosed location, rejected the ruling as the outcome of a “rigged tribunal” run by an unelected interim government with “no democratic mandate”. She accused the administration, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, of seeking to erase her political influence. Her son, Sajeeb Wazed, said the family would not appeal unless a fully elected government, one in which the Awami League can compete, is restored.
The Bangladeshi government has formally urged India to extradite Hasina and Kamal, calling it New Delhi’s “obligatory responsibility”. India said it was reviewing the verdict and would “engage constructively”, without confirming the pair’s whereabouts.
Although Bangladesh has remained largely calm, authorities reported crude bomb attacks and dozens of vehicles torched in the days leading to the ruling. Paramilitary forces remain deployed across major cities as the country waits anxiously, not just for the elections, but for what the judgment means for its fragile political future.
