Sheikh Hasina, the ousted Prime Minister of Bangladesh, has been sentenced to death after being found guilty of crimes against humanity for the violent suppression of student protests last year that led to the collapse of her government.
A panel of three judges from the International Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh’s domestic war crimes court, delivered their ruling that Hasina was responsible for inciting hundreds of extrajudicial killings carried out by law enforcement.
The courtroom, where some victims’ families were present, burst into applause as the judges delivered their sentence.
The UN declared that the verdict is an important moment for victims but cautioned that rights advocates “regret the imposition of the death penalty, which they oppose in all circumstances.”
Hasina, who has been living in self-imposed exile in India was not present at the court in Dhaka.
She slammed the “biased and politically motivated” tribunal.
The former Prime Minister faced five charges primarily related to inciting the murder of the protestors, ordering demonstrators be hanged, and ordering the use of lethal weapons, drones and helicopters to suppress the unrest. She has long-denied the charges.
She says the verdicts announced against me have been made by a rigged tribunal established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate.
Hasina says she rejects the ICT’s other allegations of human rights abuses as equally unevidenced.
Source: CNN
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