Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal has sentenced former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to death in absentia for crimes against humanity linked to last year’s deadly crackdown on student protesters.

Former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan was also handed a death sentence over the same charges, while a former police chief who turned state witness received a substantially reduced term.

The verdict marks the most dramatic legal reckoning in the country’s recent history, coming nearly a year after the mass demonstrations that toppled Hasina’s 15-year rule.

The country’s Attorney General, Mohammad Asaduzzaman, called the death sentence for Hasina “one of the most important rulings in the country’s history”, saying it delivers long-awaited justice to victims of the 2024 uprising.

He said the judgement brings justice to “the martyrs, the state and the prosecution”, and reflects the nation’s responsibility to uphold the constitution and the rule of law.
Asaduzzaman said the ruling would offer “solace” to the victims’ families and “stand as a message that no one, regardless of power, is above the law”.

Salahuddin Ahmed of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which historically rivals Hasina’s now-banned Awami League, praised the guilty verdict against the former PM as a “milestone” that shows the rule of law persists.

“It sends a message that no-one can establish a fascist system, become a fascist or create a one-person rule again,” said Ahmed in comments carried by Bangladesh’s Daily Star newspaper.

Hasina did not fall through an election but as a result of the country’s largest youth-led uprising in decades. In July and August 2024, students rallied against discriminatory hiring quotas, police abuses, and the increasingly autocratic direction of her government. When security forces responded with live fire, tear gas, and mass detentions, the protests swelled. The coalition Students Against Discrimination issued an ultimatum demanding her resignation — an ultimatum that ultimately forced her from office and into flight. Many of those killed in the crackdown were either teenagers or barely in their twenties.

The court’s judgement draws a straight line from those events to Hasina’s long political trajectory. Once hailed as a democratic icon and survivor of political violence, she spent her early years in office as a symbol of civilian leadership in a turbulent region. Over time, however, her government grew intolerant of dissent, centralised power, and expanded security force authority. Her later years saw a tightening grip on the media and judiciary, as well as an increasingly pragmatic and cynical alliance with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, despite his government’s Hindutva-driven, virulently Islamophobic domestic policies. To many observers, that partnership symbolised Hasina’s shift: from democratic legacy to authoritarian consolidation.

In India, where Hasina has been sheltered since her ouster, the foreign ministry issued a statement that managed to avoid saying very much at all. The statement, which said that India had “noted the verdict” and would “always engage constructively with all stakeholders to that end,” to “engage all stakeholders” read less like a response to a historic war-crimes verdict and more like something auto-generated by a corporate management app. Bangladesh’s interim authorities have requested Hasina’s extradition, but India has not indicated whether it intends to comply.