Bangladesh prosecution seeks death penalty for Sheikh Hasina in tribunal case
Event date: 2025-10-16
Bangladesh’s prosecution has asked a special domestic tribunal to impose the death penalty on ousted former prime minister Sheikh Hasina in a case centered on alleged crimes against humanity during last year’s mass uprising, according to AP.
Chief Prosecutor Tajul Islam made the request in closing arguments before the International Crimes Tribunal in Dhaka, the capital, AP reported. He also asked for the same punishment for former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, while leaving the sentence for former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun to the court. Al-Mamun is in custody, has pleaded guilty and became a state witness against Hasina.
The case stems from the protests in July and August 2024, when hundreds of people, including students, security officials and political activists, were killed in weekslong violence that forced Hasina from power. She has been in exile in India since Aug. 5 last year, and Khan is also believed to be in India. Hasina did not appoint lawyers to defend her, and she had already rejected the proceedings as a “kangaroo court,” AP reported.
The tribunal has not yet reached a verdict. More proceedings are required, with the next hearing scheduled for Monday. A state-appointed lawyer for Hasina has requested a week to present arguments, extending a process that has become one of the central legal and political tests for Bangladesh’s interim government.
That government is led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, who took over three days after Hasina’s fall. Yunus has repeatedly pledged accountability for the killings and has banned activities of Hasina’s Awami League party. The prosecution portrayed Hasina as the driving force behind the crackdown, with Islam describing her as the “mastermind and principal architect” of the crimes.
The scale of deaths remains politically contested. AP cited a February United Nations report saying up to 1,400 people may have been killed, while Bangladesh’s health adviser under the interim government said more than 800 died and about 14,000 were injured. Hasina and her party have challenged those figures and called for independent investigations.
The tribunal case now sits at the intersection of justice, revenge and Bangladesh’s wider political reset. A death sentence request alone does not end the matter, but it raises the stakes for a proceeding already shaped by exile, contested evidence and the absence of the country’s most prominent political figure.
For Yunus’s administration, the case is also a signal of how far the post-Hasina order intends to go in using the courts to address last year’s unrest. For Hasina’s supporters, it is evidence of a process they say is politically driven. The court’s next steps will determine whether the prosecution’s push becomes a sentence or remains a demand.
