Sheikh Hasina, Two Others Charged on Crimes against Humanity, Mass Murder
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, June 1: Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) on Sunday indicted the deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and two other senior officials on several charges, including crimes against humanity and mass murder, for their alleged role in the violent crackdown on student-led protests last year.
An investigation report found that Sheikh Hasina “directly ordered” state security forces, her political party and affiliated groups to conduct operations resulting in mass casualties. “These killings were planned and coordinated, not a spontaneous reaction,” Chief Prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam said in a televised hearing on Sunday, citing video evidence and encrypted communications between different agencies.
“Upon scrutinising the evidence, we reached the conclusion that it was a coordinated, widespread and systematic attack,” Islam said in his opening remarks. “The accused unleashed all law enforcement agencies and her armed party members to crush the uprising.”
According to United Nations estimates, up to 1,400 people were killed between July and August 2024, when Hasina’s government launched a crackdown on the protests. What began as a student-led movement against public sector job quotas escalated into some of the worst unrest Bangladesh has seen since independence in 1971. Hasina fled to India shortly after the violence.
Sunday’s proceedings marked the start of Ms Hasina’s trial in absentia nearly 10 months after the ouster of her government following the protests. “We do hereby take into cognizance the charges,” the three-judge ICT bench said after a prosecution team formally accused them of attempting to tame the protests using brutal force.
The tribunal simultaneously issued a fresh arrest warrant against Ms Hasina and then Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal. The third accused, the then inspector general of police Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, is in custody to stand trial in person.
The prosecution charged Hasina with exercising absolute authority to ruthlessly suppress the uprising. The two others were accused of provocation, complicity, abatement, instigation and facilitation.
All three were accused of superior command responsibility for the crimes. Chief Prosecutor Tajul Islam urged the court to treat the Awami League as a criminal organisation since the crimes were committed on a partisan basis. Under the ICT-BD law, if convicted, Hasina and the co-accused could face the death penalty.
The proceedings of the tribunal were broadcast live on television for the first time in Bangladesh’s history. The proceedings were scheduled to begin at 9.30 am but were slightly delayed as unidentified people hurled three crude bombs at the gate of the tribunal hours before the beginning of the trial. Police said two of the bombs exploded and the third was defused while they were trying to identify and arrest the miscreants, examining CCTV footage.
Ousted on August 5 last year after the agitation, Hasina faces multiple cases in Bangladesh. The ICT-BD earlier issued an arrest warrant against Hasina while the interim government sought her repatriation from India in a diplomatic note. New Delhi has only acknowledged receipt with no further comment.
Most senior leaders and officials of Hasina’s party and government were arrested to face charges like mass murder during the July-August protests last year that left hundreds of people, including students and policemen, dead.
The prosecutors have said Sheikh Hasina masterminded a deadly crackdown on mass protests that prompted her ouster last year. “The investigation team has found Sheikh Hasina culpable in at least five charges,” Mr Tajul Islam told reporters. “They have brought charges of abetment, incitement, complicity, facilitation, conspiracy, and failure to prevent mass murder during the July uprising.”
Tajul Islam said “Sheikh Hasina directly ordered law enforcement agencies and auxiliary forces aligned with her party to kill and maim, and to burn corpses and even people who were still alive at certain points,” he added. The ICT was set up in 2009 by Hasina to investigate crimes committed by the Pakistani army during Bangladesh’s war for independence in 1971.
“This is not an act of vendetta, but a commitment to the principle that, in a democratic country, there is no room for crimes against humanity,” Islam said.
The ICT court also opened its first related trial on 25 May, involving eight police officials accused of crimes against humanity for the killing of six protesters on 5 August 2024 — the day Hasina fled the country. Four officers are in custody, while four others are being tried in absentia.
Investigators have collected video footage, audio clips, Ms Hasina’s phone conversations, records of helicopter and drone movements as well as statements from victims of the crackdown as part of their probe. Bangladesh’s interim government on Saturday banned Ms Hasina’s party, the Awami League, pending the outcome of the trial.
The decision was taken to ensure the country’s “sovereignty and security” as well as the safety of the protesters, plaintiffs and witnesses of the tribunal, Asif Nazrul, a government advisor on law and justice, told reporters. Bangladesh has requested India to extradite her but has not yet received a response.
The case listed 81 people as witnesses, Islam said. Prosecutors also alleged that Hasina, as head of government, bears command responsibility for security force operations during the unrest. Hasina resigned as prime minister in August after ruling for 15 years and fled Bangladesh for New Delhi under pressure from millions of protesters who had taken to the streets for weeks to demand she step down. She and some of her family members also face allegations of corruption.
