Bangladesh’s exiled Prime Minister and Awami League President Sheikh Hasina on Monday denounced the court verdict convicting her of “crimes against humanity” as a “biased and politically motivated sham” delivered by an “illegal tribunal.”
The International Crimes Tribunal-1 (ICT-BD), a domestic war crimes court, announced a death sentence for Hasina, capping a contentious months-long trial that has drawn widespread international scrutiny. The tribunal delivered the verdict as crowds watched the hearing on big screens set up by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs across Dhaka, with supporters of the interim government celebrating amid a nationwide shutdown called by Hasina’s Awami League.
“The verdicts announced against me have been made by a rigged tribunal established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate,” Hasina said in a statement from India. “They are biased and politically motivated, orchestrated by a court widely criticised as illegitimate and run under the influence of the war criminal Jamaat-e-Islami party, which has long disregarded Bangladesh’s laws and international standards.”
Critics of the ICT-BD, including human rights organisations and legal experts, have long lambasted the tribunal for its structural flaws and political weaponisation. Established under the controversial 1973 International Crimes (Tribunals) Act (ICTA), the court has been decried as a “black law” that brazenly violates fundamental rights, including fair trial guarantees under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
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Under the current interim administration led by Muhammad Yunus—seen by detractors as propped up by an unholy alliance of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami, a party previously banned in 1972 and 2024—the tribunal has been reconstituted in ways that amplify these concerns. Jamaat, accused of war crimes during the 1971 Liberation War and whose leaders were previously tried by the ICT-BD itself, is alleged to wield undue influence in the Yunus regime, turning the court into a tool for settling old scores while flouting due process and international norms.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have repeatedly highlighted the tribunal’s failure to meet global fair trial standards, warning that its rushed procedures and lack of independence undermine justice rather than deliver it.
As Bangladesh grapples with this polarising verdict, calls for ICC intervention grow louder among Hasina’s supporters, who view the ICT-BD not as a bastion of accountability but as a politicised relic, hijacked by vengeful forces to erase the legacy of a leader they credit with transforming the nation.
Following the judgment, Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry formally requested India to extradite Sheikh Hasina and former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, as Yunus, BNP-Jamaat allies, and their supporters took to the streets in jubilation amid the Awami League’s shutdown protests.
Hasina, who was taken to India on August 5, 2024, defied repeated court orders to return to Dhaka for her trial. During her 15-year rule, she faced accusations from opponents of jailing political rivals, imposing draconian media curbs, and presiding over systemic human rights violations—a record her defenders counter with claims of stabilising a volatile nation and fostering economic growth.
Hasina categorically rejected the tribunal’s authority, dismissing all charges as fabricated. “It’s a guilty verdict against me that was a foregone conclusion from an apparatus designed to convict, not to seek truth,” she added in her detailed five-page statement. She expressed willingness to face a fair trial remotely from abroad.
“I am not afraid to face my accusers in a proper tribunal where the evidence can be weighed and tested fairly,” she declared. “That is why I have repeatedly challenged the interim government to bring these charges before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague—a venue they dread, knowing the ICT-BD’s own record of illegality and bias would collapse under scrutiny.”
She further accused the Yunus-led setup of fearing ICC examination of its human rights record, including alleged extrajudicial killings and suppression of dissent. Hasina lambasted Yunus for seizing power “unconstitutionally” with backing from “extremist elements,” including Jamaat, whose history of violence and opposition to Bangladesh’s secular ethos casts a dark shadow over the tribunal’s operations.
“Under his rule, every protest—from students and garment workers to doctors, nurses, teachers, and professionals—has been crushed with brutal force,” Hasina charged. “Peaceful demonstrators have been shot dead, while journalists exposing these atrocities endure harassment, torture, and imprisonment. Economic stagnation has set in, elections are endlessly delayed, and the Awami League—Bangladesh’s oldest party—has been unlawfully banned. Properties of my party’s leaders have been torched and looted nationwide, a pogrom unchecked by this so-called government of ‘justice.’”
Reflecting on the July-August 2024 violence that precipitated her ouster, Hasina defended her administration’s response as a good-faith effort to restore order and avert greater bloodshed. “We lost control amid the chaos, but to paint it as a premeditated massacre is a gross distortion,” she said. Prosecutors, she claimed, failed to adduce credible evidence of her directing “lethal force,” relying instead on decontextualised audio clips and incomplete transcripts. “Operational decisions lie with on-ground security forces following legal protocols—not my personal fiat,” she insisted.
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