Bangladesh’s former PM Sheikh Hasina’s lawyers sound alarm over ‘manifestly unfair’ trial
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Bangladesh’s former PM Sheikh Hasina’s lawyers sound alarm over ‘manifestly unfair’ trial")
Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Photograph: (PTI)
The interim government led by Muhammad Yunus has granted immunity to protesters for violence during the unrest while pursuing only Hasina’s officials, the appeal notes. Any death sentence, it warns, would equate to “summary execution,” breaching the right to life under international law.
New Delhi: As Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) prepares to announce the verdict in the trial of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, her London-based legal team has decried the proceedings as a politically rigged farce that flouts global human rights standards. In an urgent appeal filed with two UN special rapporteurs, on judicial independence and extrajudicial executions, by London barristers Steven Powles KC and Tatyana Eatwell of Doughty Street Chambers, they accused the tribunal of orchestrating a “manifestly unfair” in-absentia prosecution.
The Yunus government is pressing for several counts of “crimes against humanity” against Hasina tied to the crackdown on 2024 protests. The former PM, who ruled Bangladesh for 15 years, has not been formally notified of the charges, her lawyers say.
The trials are conducted in “an environment charged with political vengeance, under an unelected interim government which itself has no democratic mandate, and raises multiple serious concerns regarding violations of Sheikh Hasina’s right to a fair trial,” a statement by the Doughty Street Chambers said.
The appeal invokes Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, slamming the tribunal’s judges for ties to anti-Awami League parties. It points out how the Chief Prosecutor also “suffers from the appearance of bias, himself having appeared at political rallies calling for the ban of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League.”
The case, which began in June, marks the first prosecution of a Bangladeshi ex-leader at the ICT, a body Hasina herself created in 2009 to try 1971 war crimes but later weaponized against rivals. The interim government, led by Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus installed post-uprising, has granted immunity to protesters for violence during the unrest while pursuing only Hasina’s officials, the appeal notes. Any death sentence, it warns, would equate to “summary execution,” breaching the right to life under international law.
