Bangladesh opens trial of deposed ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina reviews an honor guard during a welcome ceremony at the government house in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, April 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File)

DHAKA, Bangladesh — A special tribunal set up to try Bangladesh’s ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina began proceedings Sunday by accepting the charges against humanity filed against her in connection with a mass uprising in which hundreds of students were killed last year.

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 Aug. 5, 2024, while former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan is missing and possibly also is 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.

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

In an investigation report submitted on May 12, the tribunal’s investigators brought five allegations of crimes against humanity against Hasina and the two others during the mass uprising in July-August last year.

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.

The Yunus-led administration, which has already banned the Awami League party, amended relevant laws to allow for the trial of the former ruling party for its role during the uprising.

In February, the U.N. human rights office estimated that up to 1,400 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.

In a separate development, Bangladesh’s Supreme Court on Sunday cleared the path for the Jamaat-e-Islami party to regain its registration as a political party after a decade — a decision that would enable the party to take part in elections.

The country’s top court overturned a previous High Court verdict and said it is now up to the Election Commission to formally restore the registration of Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party and their election symbol.

Yunus said his administration would hold the election by June next year, but the Bangladesh Nationalist Party headed by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, Hasina’s archrival, wants the election to be held in December this year. The relation between Zia’s party, which is the largest in absence of Hasina’s party, and the Yunus-led government has recently been frosty over the polls schedule.

Julhas Alam, The Associated Press