Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was on Monday convicted of crimes against humanity for her alleged role in ordering a deadly crackdown on student-led protests that toppled her government in August 2024.
The verdict, delivered in absentia, marks a dramatic escalation in the country’s political turmoil ahead of national elections expected in February 2026.
Hasina, 78, has been living in India since fleeing Dhaka during the uprising. She defied repeated court orders to return and attend the trial, which she has called a “jurisprudential joke”.
Prosecutors had filed five charges against her, including failure to prevent murder, with the court ruling that large-scale killings during the protests amounted to crimes against humanity under Bangladeshi law.
The United Nations has said up to 1,400 people were killed as security forces moved against demonstrators.
Her co-accused include former interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, also a fugitive, and former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, who is in custody and has pleaded guilty.
