Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal-1 has sentenced former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to death for crimes against humanity over the state’s violent crackdown on last year’s student-led July Uprising.
Two of Hasina’s former top security chiefs were also convicted. Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, the former home minister, was sentenced to death, while former Inspector General of Police Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, now a state witness for the prosecution, received five years’ imprisonment.
The three-member tribunal, led by Justice Md Golam Mortuza Mozumder, announced the judgment in a packed courtroom under an extensive security lockdown.
Proceedings began at around 12:30pm and were broadcast live on Bangladesh Television.
Sheikh Hasina, 78, was tried in absentia and found guilty of being the “mastermind and principal architect” of the lethal suppression of protests in July–August 2024, during which an estimated 1,400 people were killed, most by security-force gunfire.
She has lived in exile in India since being ousted last year and has denounced the case as a politically motivated “kangaroo court.”
Chief prosecutor submissions earlier described Hasina as bearing “superior command responsibility” for ordering the use of drones, helicopters and live ammunition against unarmed demonstrators.
The tribunal said the evidence — including documents, communications and witness testimony — established her direct role in the crackdown.
The July 2024 uprising, which ended Hasina’s 15-year rule marked by allegations of repression, mass detentions and enforced disappearances, has been widely cited by rights groups as one of the deadliest crackdowns in Bangladesh’s recent history.
Security forces have already moved to tighten control across the capital. Heavy contingents from the Bangladesh Army, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and police were deployed at all entry points to the court complex and key intersections in Dhaka ahead of the ruling. Additional patrols have been ordered nationwide in anticipation of demonstrations.
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