Former leader, who is in hiding in India, indicted over deadly crackdown on anti-government protests last year
Bangladesh’s ousted leader Sheikh Hasina has been formally charged with crimes against humanity after being accused of ordering a deadly crackdown against anti-government protests last year that left more than 1,400 people dead.
Hasina, who fled the country on 5 August last year, was charged in absentia by a three-judge panel on Thursday. She remains in hiding in neighbouring India and has ignored formal requests for her to return.
Bangladeshi prosecutors have spent months gathering evidence to bring Hasina to trial for alleged crimes committed during her 15 years in power, including the mass killing of students who rose up against her authoritarian regime in July last year.
The panel, called the international crimes tribunal, indicted Hasina, her former interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan and the former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah al-Mamun on five charges, including crimes against humanity.
Prosecutors allege that Hasina was the “mastermind, conductor and superior commander” of the targeted violence against student-led protests that erupted across Bangladesh and eventually led to the fall of her government.
