BANGLADESH’S deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was on Monday sentenced to death in absentia by a special tribunal for “crimes against humanity” over her Government’s brutal crackdown on student-led protests last year. In its verdict that followed a months-long trial, the country’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) described the 78-year-old Awami League leader as the “mastermind and principal architect” of the violent repression that killed hundreds of protesters.

 

It also handed the death sentence to former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal on similar charges. Hasina has been living in India since she fled Bangladesh on August 5 last year in the face of the massive protests. She was earlier declared a fugitive by the court. Hours after the verdict, Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry demanded that Hasina and former Home Minister Kamal be immediately handed over under an extradition treaty in view of their sentencing. “We call on the Indian Government to immediately hand over these two convicted individuals to the Bangladeshi authorities,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement in Bengali.

 

“This is also a duty for India, as per the extradition treaty existing between the two countries,” it said. “It would be an extremely unfriendly act and a contempt for justice if any other country were to grant asylum to these individuals convicted of crimes against humanity,” the Ministry said. The verdict comes months before parliamentary elections in Bangladesh. Hasina’s Awami League party has been barred from contesting the elections scheduled to be held in February.

 

Reading out the judgement before a heavily guarded courtroom in Dhaka, the ICT said the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Hasina was behind the deadly crackdown on student-led protests in July-August last year. Hasina was handed the death penalty for ordering the use of deadly force against unarmed protesters, making inflammatory statements and authorising operations that led to the killing of several students in Dhaka and surrounding areas. In recent media interviews, Hasina described the ICT as a “kangaroo court” run by her opponents.

 

A UN rights office report had earlier estimated that up to 1,400 people were killed during the month-long agitation, known as the July Uprising. There were some incidents of violence after the court delivered the verdict.