A special tribunal indicted Bangladesh’s ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday by accepting charges of crimes against humanity filed against her in connection with a mass uprising in which hundreds of students were killed last year.
A three-member panel, headed by Justice Golam Mortuza Mozumder, indicted Hasina, former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan and former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun on five charges. Hasina and Khan are being tried in absentia.
Filing five charges, the prosecution argued Hasina was directly responsible for ordering all state forces, her Awami League party and its associates to carry out actions leading to mass killings, injuries, targeted violence against women and children, the incineration of bodies and denial of medical treatment to the wounded.
The charges describe Hasina, 77, as the “mastermind, conductor and superior commander” of the atrocities.
Student-led protests toppled the Bangladesh government seven months ago. Now, protests persist, inflation has doubled, crime is on the rise and the hope for real change is dwindling.
The interim government has already banned the Awami League party and amended relevant laws to allow the trial of the former ruling party for its role during the uprising.
In February, the UN human rights office estimated up to 1,400 people may have been killed in Bangladesh over three weeks of crackdowns on the student-led protests against Hasina and two weeks after her fall on Aug. 5.
The tribunal opened the trial June 5 and asked Hasina, in exile in India since her ouster, to appear.
Bangladesh’s interim government, headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, sent a formal request to India for Hasina’s extradition but India has not responded.
Al-Mamun was arrested and was in the dock Thursday while the judges indicted them. Al-Mamun pleaded guilty and told the tribunal that he would make a statement in favour of the prosecution at a later stage.
Trial set for next month
The prosecution offered a leaked audio of Hasina and other documents as evidence to the tribunal. BBC earlier this week said it had obtained audio, which they published and broadcast, in which she appeared to authorize the security forces to use lethal force if necessary.Â
Amir Hossain, a lawyer appointed by the state for Hasina and Khan, appeared at Thursday’s hearing and filed a petition to drop their names from the case, but the tribunal rejected the plea.
After a month of violent unrest, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country. Andrew Chang explains how student-led protests over a government job quota turned into a massive and deadly movement that eventually toppled the government.
The tribunal later fixed Aug. 3 for the opening statement by the prosecution and Aug. 4 for recording witness statements.
Earlier this month, the tribunal sentenced Hasina to six months in jail after she was found in contempt of court for allegedly claiming she had a licence to kill at least 227 people.
That case stemmed from a leaked audio recording of a supposed phone conversation between Hasina and a leader of the student wing of her political party. A person alleged to be Hasina is heard on the audio saying, “There are 227 cases against me, so I now have a licence to kill 227 people.”
The tribunal was established by Hasina in 2009 to investigate and try crimes involving Bangladesh’s independence war against Pakistan in 1971. The tribunal under Hasina tried politicians, mostly from the Jamaat-e-Islami party, for their actions during the nine-month war.
Aided by India, Bangladesh gained independence from Pakistan under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina’s father and the country’s first leader.
Hasina herself was leader for 15 years, a tenure marked by economic development but also accusations of human rights abuses. Her administration was accused of unfairly muzzling opposition politicians, and sometimes held elections that were deemed neither free nor fair.
Hasina and her Awami League party previously criticized the tribunal and its prosecution team for connections to political parties, especially Jamaat-e-Islami.
