Facing charges: Hasina is being tried in absentia alongside two former senior officials. — AP
Prosecution lawyers demanded that fugitive ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina receive the death penalty in her trial for crimes against humanity.
Hasina has defied court orders to return from India, where she fled last year, to face charges of ordering a deadly crackdown in a failed attempt to crush a student-led uprising.
Up to 1,400 people were killed in the clashes between July and August 2024, according to the United Nations.
“We demand the highest punishment for her,” chief prosecutor Tajul Islam told reporters outside court on Thursday.
“For a single murder, one death penalty is the rule. For 1,400 murders, she should be sentenced 1,400 times – but since that is not humanly possible, we demand at least one.”
The prosecution alleges that Hasina, 78, was “the nucleus around whom all the crimes committed during the July-August uprising revolved”.
She is being tried in absentia alongside two former senior officials.
Her ex-interior minister, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, is also a fugitive, while former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun is in custody and has pleaded guilty.
The prosecution said Kamal should also face the death penalty.
The trial, which opened on June 1, has heard months of testimony alleging Hasina’s role in ordering or failing to prevent mass killings.
“Her goal was to cling to power permanently – for herself and her family,” Islam said.
“She has turned into a hardened criminal, and shows no remorse for the brutality she has committed.”
Prosecutors have filed five charges, including failure to prevent murder, which amount to crimes against humanity under Bangladeshi law.
Hasina’s now-banned Awami League says that she “categorically” denies the charges.
Hasina has a state-appointed lawyer but refuses to recognise the court’s authority.
The trial is in its final stages, with the interim government aiming to steer the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million towards elections in February.
Witnesses have included a man whose face was ripped apart by a gunshot during the culmination of the protests.
The prosecution also played audiotapes that suggested she directly ordered security forces to “use lethal weapons” against protesters and that “wherever they find (them), they will shoot”. — AFP
