In an exclusive interview with India Today, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, son of five-time Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, decried the death sentence imposed on his mother by the Jamaat-controlled International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD) as a sham orchestrated by an “unelected, unconstitutional, and undemocratic” interim regime.
Sheikh Hasina, 78, was convicted in absentia on November 17 for “crimes against humanity.” Sajeeb Wazed, speaking from exile alongside his mother in New Delhi, branded the proceedings a “complete mockery of justice,” pointing to a cascade of procedural irregularities that echo long-standing criticisms of the ICT-BD’s legitimacy.
Established in 2010 under Hasina’s own Awami League government to prosecute 1971 war crimes, the tribunal has faced accusations of bias and kangaroo-court tactics from international watchdogs like Human Rights Watch (HRW), which in October 2024 urged reforms to align it with global standards. Under the current Yunus-led interim administration, the ICT has been repurposed against her, amplifying concerns over politicisation.
Sajeeb Wazed hammered the trial’s breakneck pace: “Everyone knew this sentence was predetermined. The trials were rushed…finished within 100โ140 days.”
The timeline bears this out: Charges were framed on June 1, 2025, with hearings wrapping by October 23โspanning roughly 145 days before the November 17 verdict. This compressed schedule, per legal experts, deprived the defense of adequate preparation time, contravening fair trial norms under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Bangladesh ratified.
Compounding the haste, the unelected interim government bypassed parliamentary oversight to amend the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act of 1973 via executive ordinance in November 2024 and May 2025. These changes expanded the tribunal’s jurisdiction to target political figures and parties, including provisions for prosecuting entire organizations like the AL, without legislative debateโa move slammed by the Atlantic Council as eroding judicial independence. Wazed fumed: “They amended the laws, which canโt be done without the parliament.”
The defense fared no better. Hasina was denied her choice of counsel; a state-appointed lawyer, Amir Hossain, was thrust upon her, receiving the prosecution’s voluminous evidence only on June 25, 2025โmere weeks before trial. This last-minute handover, coupled with judges’ alleged ties to anti-AL parties, prompted an urgent UN appeal filed last week by Hasina’s team, flagging “serious fair trial and due process issues.” As Wazed put it: “She was not permitted her own defense attorneys…itโs a complete mockery of justice.”
He forecast a grim appeals process: “Right now, there is no rule of law in Bangladesh. Any legal appeal will have to wait until the rule of law is restored, at which point the verdict will be overturned.” With the ICT’s appeals chamber under the same interim oversight, critics like Doughty Street Chambers argue the entire apparatus risks “illegality and unimplementability.”
Sajeeb Wazed’s sharpest indictment? The verdict reeks of “revenge, not justice,” shielding the uprising perpetrators while targeting Hasina’s camp. “They have actually passed a law that provides immunity for the killings of all the police officers and all our party activists,” he charged.
This aligns with a controversial October 2024 directive from the interim government, granting blanket indemnity to “students and citizens” who “made the uprising successful”โeffectively absolving those responsible for slaying over 300 police officers and hundreds of AL workers during the July-August 2024 chaos, as documented by Eurasia Review and The Daily Star.
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Amnesty International echoed this double standard in a November 18 statement: While Hasina’s conviction may signal accountability for the regime’s brutality, it “does not serve justice” absent probes into uprising-linked atrocities, including extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrests.
Sajeeb Wazed pressed: “Hundreds of Awami League activists were detained, while many policemen were killed… How can you have justice only for one side but no justice for the other side at all? That is not justice.”
The asymmetry extends to the AL itself: On May 12, 2025, the government invoked anti-terror laws to impose a nationwide ban on the partyโits activities, affiliates, and symbolsโpending ICT conclusions, stripping it from the Election Commission’s registered list.
This “legal proscription,” per Reuters, has sparked protests and shutdowns, with the banned AL rejecting the verdict and vowing a November 18 hartal. Hasina, in her initial response from exile, labelled the tribunal “biased, politically motivated… under an unelected government with no democratic mandate.”
Looking ahead, Wazed warned of turmoil barreling toward the February 2026 polls, which he dismissed as a “sham” without AL participation. The International Republican Institute’s (IRI) October 2025 pre-election assessment flagged “significant challenges,” including voter suppression, media curbs, and the AL ban’s disenfranchising effectโpotentially fueling violence amid economic woes and Islamist coalitions eyeing power.
Chatham House analysts note the Yunus regime’s reform referendum could “signal a transitional moment,” but without inclusive polls, it risks “bitter struggle” and unrest, as The Indian Express described the AL-interim rift.
“The courts are just rubber-stamping everything,” Wazed asserted, predicting the verdict’s collapse under a “democratically elected government” due to “so many legal flaws.” He issued a stark ultimatum: “We will not allow elections without the Awami League go-ahead. Our protests are going to get stronger and stronger. Unless the international community does something, thereโs probably going to be violence.”
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