“The verdicts announced against me have been made by a rigged tribunal established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate. They are biased and politically motivated,” Hasina said in a statement issued from hiding in India.
“Its guilty verdict against me was a foregone conclusion,” Hasina added in the statement.
On Monday, the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) pronounced the death sentence against Hasina in absentia.Reading out the judgment before a heavily guarded courtroom in Dhaka, the tribunal said the prosecution had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Hasina was behind the deadly crackdown on student-led protests between July 15 and August 15 last year.
A UN rights office report had earlier estimated that up to 1,400 people were killed during the month-long agitation, known as the July Uprising.
Hasina was handed the death penalty for ordering the use of deadly force against unarmed protesters, making inflammatory statements and authorising operations that led to the killing of several students in Dhaka and surrounding areas.
Hasina claimed that she would be willing to attend a fresh trial outside her home nation. “I am not afraid to face my accusers in a proper tribunal where the evidence can be weighed and tested fairly,” she said.
“That is why I have repeatedly challenged the interim government to bring these charges before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.”
