Bangladesh Ex-PM Sheikh Hasina Charged With Crimes Against Humanity Over 2024 Unrest
Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday was formally charged with crimes against humanity for allegedly ordering mass killings during a nationwide uprising last year.
During a live televised hearing, Chief Prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam of the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) said the violence was “planned and coordinated”, not a spontaneous reaction. The hearing was broadcast live on state-run Bangladesh Television — the first time such proceedings have been aired in the country’s history.
“Upon scrutinising the evidence, we reached the conclusion that it was a coordinated, widespread and systematic attack,” Islam said in his opening remarks. “The accused unleashed all law enforcement agencies and her armed party members to crush the uprising.”
According to United Nations estimates, up to 1,400 people were killed between July and August 2024, when Hasina’s government launched a crackdown on the protests. What began as a student-led movement against public sector job quotas escalated into some of the worst unrest Bangladesh has seen since independence in 1971. Hasina fled to India shortly after the violence.
Hasina, who is now living in self-imposed exile in India, has dismissed the charges as politically driven. Also charged in the case are former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al Mamun, who is currently in custody but did not appear in court, and ex-interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, who is also believed to be in hiding.
“This is not an act of vendetta, but a commitment to the principle that, in a democratic country, there is no room for crimes against humanity,” Islam said. As part of their investigation, officials have gathered video footage, audio recordings, Hasina’s phone conversations, helicopter and drone activity logs, and testimonies from victims of the crackdown.
The ICT court also opened its first related trial on 25 May, involving eight police officials accused of crimes against humanity for the killing of six protesters on 5 August 2024 — the day Hasina fled the country. Four officers are in custody, while four others are being tried in absentia.
The ICT was originally established by Hasina’s own government in 2009 to investigate atrocities committed by the Pakistani army during Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence.