The ousted prime minister of Bangladesh has been sentenced to death after being found guilty of crimes against humanity. Sheikh Hasina, 78, served as the country’s prime minister from 1996 to 2001 and again from 2009 to 2024, becoming the longest-serving female head of government in the world. In July 2024, peaceful student-led protests erupted in response to government actions but grew tense after Hasina gave a speech in which she called protesters “razakar,” a term used for pro-Pakistan collaborators during Bangladesh’s War of Independence, Al Jazeera reports. The demonstrations ultimately led to Hasina’s downfall and to the deaths of an estimated 1,400 people, according to the United Nations. Hasina was sentenced on Monday by the International Crimes Tribunal in Dhaka, which found her guilty of inciting the killings of protesters. “She expressed that she ordered to kill and eliminate the protesting students,” the judges concluded. Hasina responded to the verdict by calling it “biased and politically motivated,” adding that she simply “lost control of the situation” and that to “characterize what happened as a premeditated assault on citizens is simply to misread the facts.” Alongside Hasina, the former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan was also sentenced to death. Both Hasina and Khan remain in exile in India and have been ordered by Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry to be extradited to their country.
Read it at CNN
