Bangladesh Tribunal Indicts Former PM Hasina on Mass Murder Charges

In another development, Bangladesh's Supreme Court on Sunday ordered the Election Commission to restore rightwing Jamaat-e-Islami's party registration, nearly eight months after the interim government lifted a ban on it, clearing the way for its participation in future elections. Court officials said the SC's appellate division, led by Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed, directed the commission to restore the party's registration.

“We do hereby take into cognisance the charges,” the three-judge ICT bench said after a prosecution team formally accused them of attempting to tame the protests using brutal force. Under the ICT-BD law, if convicted, Ms Hasina and the co-accused could face the death penalty. The former PM was forced out of power in August last year after massive student protests, following which she fled to New Delhi.

The ICT simultaneously issued a fresh arrest warrant against Ms Hasina and then home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal. The third accused, the then inspector-general of police Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, is in custody to stand trial in person.

The prosecution charged Ms Hasina with exercising absolute authority to ruthlessly suppress the uprising. The two others were accused of provocation, complicity, abatement, instigation and facilitation. All three were accused of superior command responsibility for the crimes. Chief prosecutor Tajul Islam urged the court to treat the Awami League as a criminal organisation since the crimes were committed on a partisan basis.

The proceedings of the tribunal were broadcast live on television for the first time in Bangladesh's history. The proceedings were scheduled to begin at 9.30 am but were slightly delayed as unidentified people hurled three crude bombs at the gate of the tribunal hours before the beginning of the trial. Police said two of the bombs exploded while the third was defused while they were trying to identify and arrest the miscreants, examining CCTV footage.

Ousted on August 5 last year after the agitation, Ms Hasina faces multiple cases in Bangladesh.

The ICT-BD earlier issued an arrest warrant against Ms Hasina while the interim government sought her repatriation from India in a diplomatic note. New Delhi has only acknowledged receipt with no further comment. Most senior leaders and officials of Ms Hasina's party and government were arrested to face charges like mass murder during the July-August protests last year that left hundreds of people, including students and policemen, dead.

According to a UN rights office report, some 1,400 people were killed between July 15 and August 15 last year as violence continued even after the fall of Ms Hasina's Awami League regime.

Restoring the Jamaat-e-Islami's registration, the Bangladesh apex court said it was up to the EC to decide if the party could contest polls using its traditional “scale” symbol. The EC scrapped the registration of Jamaat, which was opposed to Bangladesh's 1971 independence from Pakistan, in December 2018 in line with a high court ruling. In 2013, the Bangladesh Supreme Court cancelled the registration of the Jamaat-e-Islami, ruling that the party is unfit to contest national elections.

Ms Hasina's government had slapped a total ban on the party days ahead of her ouster on August 5, 2024, in a violent mass movement led by a platform called Students against Discrimination (SAD). Jaamaat and several other parties had backed SAD. After Ms Hasina's ouster, the party appealed for a review of the 2013 court order banning it.

"Today concludes the decade-long legal battle. We hope Bangladesh will have a vibrant parliament after this verdict. We hope voters will vote for the Jamaat candidate of their choice now," one of Jamaat's leading counsels Mohammad Shishir Manir said.

The verdict boosted Jamaat further as it came a week after one of its top leaders of the party and a death row convict, A.T.M. Azharul Islam, was freed by the same apex court. Mr Islam had been facing charges of committing crimes against humanity by siding with the Pakistani troops during the Liberation War.

The interim government's law adviser Asif Nazrul had immediately welcomed Mr Islam's acquittal and said, “The credit for creating the scope for establishing this justice goes to the July-August (2024) mass movement leadership.”