Bangladesh’s fugitive former prime minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday called the guilty verdict and death sentence in her crimes against humanity trial “biased and politically motivated.”
Hasina, 78, defied court orders that she return from India to attend her trial about whether she ordered a deadly crackdown against the student-led uprising that ousted her.
She was found guilty and sentenced to death earlier yesterday.
Photo: AP
“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 said in a statement issued from hiding in India.
“They are biased and politically motivated,” she said.
Critics accused her of jailing political rivals, enacting harsh anti-press laws, and overseeing widespread human rights abuses, including the killing of opposition activists.
Photo: AP
However, the trial centered around the 1,400 people who were killed between July and August last year, the UN said.
Hasina was assigned a state-
appointed lawyer for the trial, but she refused to recognize the court’s authority and said she rejected all charges.
“Its guilty verdict against me was a foregone conclusion,” she added in the statement, claiming she would be willing to attend a fresh trial outside her home nation.
“I am not afraid to face my accusers in a proper tribunal where the evidence can be weighed and tested fairly,” she said.
“That is why I have repeatedly challenged the interim government to bring these charges before the International Criminal Court in The Hague,” she said.
Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned India’s envoy to Dhaka this month, demanding that New Delhi block the “notorious fugitive” Hasina from talking to journalists and “granting her a platform to spew hatred.”
The International Crisis Group (ICG) said the “political repercussions of this verdict are significant.”
“The process has not been without critics,” ICG analyst Thomas Kean said.
“In absentia trials are often a source of contention, and in this case the speed with which the hearings were conducted and the apparent lack of resources for the defense also raise questions of fairness... But they should not be used to downplay or deflect from Sheikh Hasina’s actions,” he said.
“The prospect of Sheikh Hasina mounting a political comeback in Bangladesh now appears very slim,” he added.
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