Hasina | Pakistan

Anti-corruption authorities in Bangladesh have seized approximately 10 kilogrammes of gold, worth around $1.3 million, from bank lockers belonging to ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina, officials said on Wednesday. Officials from the Central Intelligence Cell (CIC) of the National Board of Revenue said the discovery was made after opening lockers that had been seized in September. “Following a court order, we opened the lockers and found about 9.7 kilogrammes of gold belonging to the former prime minister,” a senior CIC official told AFP, requesting anonymity. The haul included gold coins, bars and jewellery. Investigators said Hasina had failed to deposit some of the gifts she received while in office at the state treasury, known as the Toshakhana, as required by law. The National Board of Revenue is also probing alleged tax evasion and examining whether Hasina declared the recovered gold in her tax filings. Bangladesh has been in political turmoil since the end of Hasina’s rule, and violence has marred cam...

Pakistan on Friday said that the recent death sentence for former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina was an “internal matter” for the country and that its people were fully capable of solving their own issues. A Bangladesh court had sentenced Hasina to death on Monday, concluding a months-long trial that found her guilty of ordering a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising last year. The ruling came months ahead of parliamentary elections expected to be held in early February. Addressing his weekly press briefing today, Foreign Office (FO) Spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said several queries were received regarding the development, on which he said: “This is an internal matter of Bangladesh. The people of Bangladesh are fully capable of addressing their issues in accordance with their own democratic and constitutional processes.” Hasina was found guilty of ordering lethal force by a tribunal in the capital Dhaka, 15 months after resigning and fleeing to India in the face of a student-led uprising that kil...

A Bangladesh court sentenced ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to death on Monday, concluding a months-long trial that found her guilty of ordering a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising last year. The ruling comes months ahead of parliamentary elections expected to be held in early February. Hasina’s Awami League party has been barred from contesting and it is feared that Monday’s verdict could stoke fresh unrest ahead of the vote. The International Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh’s domestic war crimes court located in the capital Dhaka, delivered the guilty verdict amid tight security and in Hasina’s absence after she fled to India in August 2024. View this post on Instagram 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 called the guilty verdict and death sentence in her crimes against humanity trial “biased and politically motivated”. “The verdicts announced against me hav...

Audio recordings analysed by the BBC suggest Bangladesh’s fugitive ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina ordered a deadly crackdown on protests last year, allegations for which she is on trial. Up to 1,400 people were killed between July and August 2024, according to the United Nations, when Hasina’s government ordered a crackdown on protesters in a failed bid to cling to power. Hasina, 77, fled to India at the culmination of the student-led uprising and has defied orders to return to Dhaka, where her trial in absentia for charges amounting to crimes against humanity opened on June 1. The BBC Eye Investigations team analysed audio alleged to be of Hasina — and which forms a key plank of the evidence for the prosecution — which was leaked online. In the recording, dated July 18, 2024, a voice alleged to be Hasina is heard authorising security forces to “use lethal weapons” against protesters and that “wherever they find [them], they will shoot”. The BBC said audio forensics experts had found no evidence that the spe...

Bangladesh on Wednesday convicted fugitive ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina of contempt of court and issued a six-month prison sentence in absentia, the first verdict since she was ousted last year. Hasina, 77, fled to neighbouring India at the culmination of the student-led uprising in August 2024, and has defied orders to return to Dhaka. “She will serve the sentence the day she arrives in Bangladesh or surrenders to the court,” chief prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam told reporters after the court decision. The case centred around comments that prosecutors said she had made after she was ousted from power, which they said threatened witnesses in ongoing court hearings. “The prosecution team believes her comment created an aura of fear among those who filed the cases and among the witnesses,” Islam said. Shakil Akanda Bulbul, a fugitive leader of her now-banned Awami League, was sentenced to two months in prison in the same case. Up to 1,400 people were killed between July and August last year, according to th...

Bangladesh’s war crimes court ordered fugitive ex-leader Sheikh Hasina on Monday to return to face trial on charges amounting to crimes against humanity. Hasina, 77, fled Dhaka by helicopter to India in August 2024 at the culmination of a student-led mass uprising. She has defied an extradition order to return to Bangladesh. Up to 1,400 people were killed between July and August 2024 when Hasina’s government launched a crackdown in a failed bid to cling to power, according to the United Nations. Hasina and former senior figures connected to her ousted government and her now-banned party, the Awami League, are being prosecuted in Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT). Prosecutors have filed five charges against Hasina, including abetment, incitement, complicity, facilitation, conspiracy and failure to prevent mass murder — charges that amount to crimes against humanity under Bangladeshi law. “The court directed the prosecution team to issue a notice as soon as possible summoning them to appear befor...

Bangladesh’s former prime minister Sheikh Hasina masterminded a deadly crackdown on mass protests that prompted her ouster last year, prosecutors at a domestic war crimes tribunal said on Monday. Up to 1,400 people died in July 2024 when Hasina’s government launched a brutal campaign to silence the opposition, according to the United Nations. Hasina lives in self-imposed exile in India, where she fled by helicopter, and has defied an arrest warrant from Dhaka over charges of crimes against humanity. “The investigation team has found Sheikh Hasina culpable in at least five charges,” Mohammad Tajul Islam, chief prosecutor at Bangladesh’s domestic International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), told reporters. “They have brought charges of abetment, incitement, complicity, facilitation, conspiracy, and failure to prevent mass murder during the July uprising.” Tajul Islam said the prosecution had submitted its first report to be presented at the court set to try Hasina and two of her aides — former home minister Asaduzzaman...

Bangladesh’s interim government has banned all activities of the Awami League, the political party of deposed former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, under the country’s Anti-Terrorism Act, citing national security concerns. The decision, announced late Saturday, follows days of street protests led by the student-driven National Citizen Party, which emerged from last year’s uprising that toppled Hasina. Several Islamist and right-wing parties, including Jamaat-e-Islami and other opposition groups, joined the demonstrations, demanding that the Awami League be designated a terrorist organisation. The ban would remain in place until the trial of the party and its leadership over the deaths of hundreds of protesters at the International Crimes Tribunal is completed, the government said in a statement. The government also announced an amendment to the ICT Act, allowing the tribunal to prosecute not only individuals but also political parties and organisations. The change clears the way for the Awami League to be trie...