A special Bangladesh tribunal on Monday sentenced Dhaka’s former police chief and two senior colleagues to death for crimes against humanity committed during the rule of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
A three-judge panel of Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD), led by Justice Mohammad Golam Mortuza Mozumder, handed down the sentence to former Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) commissioner Habibur Rahman, former DMP joint commissioner Sudip Kumar Chakraborty and additional deputy commissioner Mohammad Akhtarul Islam after their trial in absentia.
This is the second verdict delivered by the restructured ICT-BD which earlier handed down the death penalty to deposed premier Hasina and then home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal.
The verdict comes ahead of elections on February 12, the first in the South Asian country of 170 million people since Hasina’s overthrow in August 2024. Five other ex-police officers were sentenced to varying terms.
The case concerned the killing of six protesters in Dhaka on August 5, 2024, the day Hasina fled to India as protesters stormed her palace. Up to 1,400 people were killed between July and August 2024 when Hasina’s government launched a brutal campaign to silence the protesters, according to the United Nations.
“The police forces… opened fire with lethal weapons… causing death to the aforesaid six persons,” judge Golam Mortuza Mozumder read to the court in Dhaka. The court heard how Rahman sent messages to police units ordering the use of lethal force to crush the protests.
Chief prosecutor Tajul Islam said he was satisfied with the verdict against the three men, although he wanted tougher sentences for the five others found guilty who were handed prison terms.
Ex-police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, who was in court and had pleaded guilty, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.
