Bangladesh's fugitive ex-Premier Hasina calls death sentence 'distasteful, politically motivated'

According to a statement shared by her Awami League party through US-based social media platform Facebook, Hasina claimed that the verdicts announced against her "have been made by a rigged tribunal established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate."

Earlier on Monday, Dhaka-based International Crimes Tribunal sentenced in absentia Hasina and former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal to death over a deadly crackdown on last year's student-led uprising which ended the 15-year rule of the Awami League.

Some 1,400 people were killed during the demonstrations, and the ousted prime minister said the verdict was "distasteful, biased, and politically motivated."

The court also sentenced former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun to five years in jail as he "became an approver in the case by admitting his involvement."

Hasina and Kamal fled to India on Aug. 5 last year at the height of the mass uprising that ousted the government.

Hasina said people in Bangladesh "can see that the trials conducted by the so-called International Crimes Tribunal were never intended to achieve justice or provide any genuine insight into the events of July and August 2025."

"Rather, their purpose was to scapegoat the Awami League (party)," she claimed.

The tribunal was set up by Hasina in 2010 to try opposition leaders of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and Bangladesh Nationalist Party on war crimes charges occurred during Bangladesh's Liberation War in 1971.

Human rights organizations, however, had alleged gross violations of human rights and legal rights to the opposition leaders executed in the tribunal.

Following Hasina's ouster, an interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, was established and it has announced to hold the first elections in February.

Yunus' office in a statement described the verdict as "historic," and urged people "not to show any sign of impatience and follow law and order."