‘Planned systematic assault’: Bangladesh opens trial of ex-PM Sheikh Hasina over 2024 crackdown on protesters

NEW DELHI: Bangladesh on Sunday opened the high-profile trial of fugitive former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who’s accused of orchestrating a “systematic attack” to suppress mass protests in opposition to her authorities in mid-2024 that left as much as 1,400 folks useless, in accordance with United Nations estimates.At the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in Dhaka, chief prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam advised the court docket that the proof confirmed the crackdown was “a coordinated, widespread and systematic attack.”“The accused unleashed all law enforcement agencies and her armed party members to crush the uprising,” Islam mentioned in his opening remarks.Hasina, 77, stays in self-imposed exile in India and has rejected the fees as politically motivated. She fled Bangladesh by helicopter in August 2024 as her 15-year rule collapsed amid a student-led rebellion. She has defied an extradition order and didn’t seem in court docket.Alongside Hasina, the case includes former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al Mamun, who’s in custody however was absent from Sunday’s listening to, and ex-interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, who can also be on the run.The expenses embrace “abetment, incitement, complicity, facilitation, conspiracy, and failure to prevent mass murder during the July uprising.”Islam insisted the case was grounded in justice, not vengeance: “This is not an act of vendetta, but a commitment to the principle that, in a democratic country, there is no room for crimes against humanity.”The prosecution mentioned it has collected in depth proof, together with video and audio recordings, intercepted telephone calls, flight knowledge from helicopters and drones, and testimonies from victims and their households.The trial, broadcast stay on state-run Bangladesh Television, marks the second listening to linked to the previous administration. The ICT court docket launched its first such trial on May 25, concentrating on eight law enforcement officials over the killing of six protesters on August 5, the day Hasina fled.The ICT was initially established by Hasina herself in 2009 to attempt struggle crimes from the 1971 independence struggle. However, critics have lengthy accused the tribunal of getting used to focus on political rivals. During her tenure, a number of high opposition figures, particularly from the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami get together, had been sentenced to loss of life.Earlier on Sunday, the Bangladesh Supreme Court lifted a ban on Jamaat-e-Islami, enabling it to contest future elections. In distinction, Hasina’s Awami League stays banned by the interim authorities, which has pledged to carry normal elections by June 2026.