Bangladesh opens trial of deposed ex-PM Sheikh Hasina

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Bangladesh opens trial of deposed ex-PM Sheikh Hasina

A tribunal established to try Bangladesh’s ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina has begun proceedings by accepting charges of crimes against humanity filed against her in connection with a mass uprising in which hundreds of students were killed.

The Dhaka-based International Crimes Tribunal directed investigators to produce Hasina, a former home minister and a former police chief before the court on June 16.

Hasina has been in exile in India since August 5, 2024, while former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan is missing and possibly also in India.

Former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al Mamun has been arrested.

Bangladesh sent a formal request to India to extradite Hasina in December.

State-run Bangladesh Television broadcast the court proceedings live on Sunday.

Hasina and her Awami League party had earlier criticised the tribunal and its prosecution team for their connection with political parties, especially with the Jamaat-e-Islami party.

The tribunal’s investigators have brought five allegations of crimes against humanity against Hasina and the two others during the mass uprising in July-August.

According to the charges, Hasina was directly responsible for ordering all state forces, her Awami League party and its associates to carry out actions that led to mass killings, injuries, targeted violence against women and children, the incineration of bodies and denial of medical treatment to the wounded.

The charges describe Hasina as the “mastermind, conductor, and superior commander” of the atrocities.

Three days after Hasina’s ouster, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus took over as the nation’s interim leader.

In February, the UN human rights office estimated up to 1400 people may have been killed in Bangladesh over three weeks in the crackdown on the student-led protests against Hasina, who ruled the country for 15 years.

The tribunal was established by Hasina in 2009 to investigate and try crimes involving Bangladesh’s independence war in 1971.

The tribunal under Hasina tried politicians, mostly from the Jamaat-e-Islami party, for their actions during the nine-month war against Pakistan.

Aided by India, Bangladesh gained independence from Pakistan under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina’s father and the country’s first leader.

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