Fair Observer’s Video Producer Rohan Khattar Singh speaks with Awami League activist Nijhoom Majumder about Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) sentencing former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to death by hanging. Majumder argues the verdict is legally void and politically motivated. Khattar Singh presses him on the legitimacy of the interim government led by Bangladeshi Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus, and on his sharply different account of the August 2024 protests that forced Hasina to flee to India.

Death sentence, tribunal legality and trial fairness

Hasina has been sentenced to death by hanging on three counts of crimes against humanity tied to the unrest in 2024. Majumder says the tribunal itself lacks jurisdiction and credibility. He labels the ICT a “kangaroo tribunal,” insisting it has been repurposed for political retribution. In his telling, Bangladesh created the International Crimes Tribunal Act of 1973 in the shadow of the 1971 liberation war to prosecute atrocities committed during that conflict. The law carries an implicit historical scope and cannot be stretched to try a contemporary leader for events five decades later.

Even if the court were competent, Majumder claims the process violated the core norms of due process. He says Hasina was denied “equality of arms.” She could not appoint counsel of her choosing, present evidence freely or challenge prosecution witnesses. She was instead assigned a state lawyer whom he deems ineffective. For Majumder, a death sentence delivered under those conditions cannot be called justice.

Khattar Singh frames the issue for a global audience: Whatever one thinks of Hasina’s record, executing a former prime minister after a trial widely perceived as one-sided risks shredding the rule of law.

Yunus’s rise and the August 2024 protests

Khattar Singh notes that international coverage portrayed Hasina’s ouster as a mass democratic uprising that brought Yunus to power on popular demand. Majumder disputes both the democratic framing and the constitutional basis of the new government. He argues Bangladesh’s constitution provides no pathway for an interim administration. According to him, the Yunus cabinet claimed legitimacy from an advisory opinion by the Supreme Court under Article 106. Yet when lawyers sought the underlying documents, none were produced.

Hasina publicly stated she never resigned. In Majumder’s view, there was neither a resignation nor a valid constitutional mechanism to replace her. If the government’s birth is illegal, he says, all actions flowing from it — including the tribunal — are tainted.

Majumder then walks through the 2024 unrest, tracing the spark to renewed student protests over public-sector job quotas. After Hasina abolished quotas in 2018 under pressure, a High Court verdict in June 2024 ruled that the abolition was unlawful, reigniting demonstrations to stop quotas returning. Majumder says the government appealed the ruling on the students’ behalf but insisted it could not override the judiciary. What followed, he expresses, was a violent, organized campaign: Allegedly, armed groups attacked police, freed prisoners, torched metro rail facilities and vandalized state buildings.

Khattar Singh pushes back with the widely reported claim that around 1,400 students were killed by state violence. Majumder rejects this figure, arguing that casualty numbers shifted repeatedly and that no consistent official list supports the higher tolls. He maintains that protesters initiated lethal violence while police primarily used crowd-control measures.

The Awami League’s future, public mood and extradition

Khattar Singh asks whether the sentence marks the end of Hasina and the now-banned Awami League political party. Majumder says the party has outlived earlier bans and upheavals and is now gaining symbolic strength. Public sentiment began shifting within weeks of Hasina’s fall, with many Bangladeshis privately concluding that, whatever her flaws, the Awami League provided stability and development.

The absence of massive street rallies, he argues, stems from fear and repression. Large-scale arrests of activists, jailed members of parliament, threats and attacks on supporters’ homes make open protest perilous. He points to a recent nationwide shutdown called by the party as evidence of quieter resistance.

On Hasina’s exile, Khattar Singh asks whether India will extradite her after Interpol outreach and a formal request by the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka. Majumder believes India will refuse. He argues that the case is political, the tribunal illegitimate and the trial unfair — conditions that allow India to deny extradition under the 2013 India–Bangladesh treaty’s political offense and fair trial clauses. In his view, India will wait for an elected, broadly legitimate government in Dhaka before considering any such demand.

Civil war warning

Majumder also suggests Hasina’s ouster was aided by foreign-linked “deep state” forces and that international media and UN reporting amplified that agenda. He predicts that Bangladesh is heading toward “a deadly civil war.” He argues that repression, the narrowing of peaceful political space and the targeting of liberation-war memory will eventually provoke a violent backlash.

Khattar Singh closes by stressing that with Hasina’s sentencing, uncertainty looms large over Bangladesh.

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.