Bangladesh’s fugitive former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has denied accusations that she dedicated crimes against humanity, her state-appointed defence lawyer mentioned on Tuesday (July 1, 2025).
Up to 1,400 folks have been killed between July and August final yr, in accordance with the United Nations, when Ms. Hasina’s authorities ordered a crackdown on protesters in a failed bid to cling to energy.
Ms. Hasina fled to India on the fruits of the student-led rebellion in August and has defied orders to return to Dhaka, the place her trial in absentia opened on June 1.
Prosecutors have filed 5 charges against Ms. Hasina — abetment, incitement, complicity, facilitation, conspiracy and failure to stop mass homicide — that quantity to crimes against humanity beneath Bangladeshi regulation.
Defence lawyer Amir Hossain mentioned Ms. Hasina has denied all charges, telling journalists that he would current “arguments to seek her discharge from these allegations”.
The ousted chief’s banned Awami League, in an announcement issued in London, referred to as it a “show trial” and mentioned that the accused “categorically denies the charges”.
To illustrate the allegations against Ms. Hasina, prosecutors have drawn up a listing of key examples from their cumbersome file.
They accuse her of incitement to violence, in addition to ordering the usage of deadly weapons together with from helicopters.
Chief prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam mentioned Ms. Hasina was pushed by a want to cling to energy in any respect prices.
He pointed to her alleged push for folks to “worship” her late father, the founding president of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
“Her father had the same obsession with holding on to power,” Islam mentioned.
Prosecutors say Ms. Hasina holds general command accountability in three particular circumstances — the separate trials of that are ongoing — linked to the violent suppression of the rebellion.
Those circumstances are the homicide of 23-year-old scholar protester Abu Sayeed, the killing of six others within the Chankharpul space of Dhaka, and the killing and burning of six folks in Ashulia, one other suburb of the capital.
Ms. Hasina is on trial with two different officers.
One of them, former Interior Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, who faces comparable charges, can be a fugitive. The second, ex-police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al Mamun, is in custody.
The trial continues.
