Dhaka: Ousted Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been sentenced to six months in prison by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in a contempt of court case, according to reports from Bangladeshi media on Wednesday.
A three-judge panel of the ICT-1, headed by Justice Md Golam Mortuza Mozumder, delivered the verdict after examining a leaked audio clip that surfaced on social media last year.
In the clip, Hasina is allegedly heard telling a banned student leader that she had “227 cases filed against [her], so [she had] the licence to kill 227 people.”
The court found the remark to be contemptuous and an attempt to undermine the judiciary.
This marks the first conviction against the 72-year-old former prime minister since she was removed from office on August 5, 2023, amid nationwide student-led protests that forced her to flee the capital, Dhaka.
The ICT also sentenced Shakil Akand Bulbul, the former chairman of Gobindaganj upazila and a banned Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) leader, to two months in jail over the same audio conversation.
According to the state-run BSS news agency, the sentences will take effect upon their arrest or voluntary surrender.
Hasina, who led the Awami League government for over a decade, is currently facing multiple legal cases following her ouster last year.
Her fall from power came after months of unrest, culminating in a mass uprising led by students, which resulted in significant casualties, including the deaths of several hundred people.
In the wake of her exit, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, aged 84, was appointed to lead the interim government.
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Since then, many top Awami League leaders and officials from the previous administration have either been arrested or gone into hiding, both domestically and abroad, as a wide-ranging crackdown and trials continue.
The International Crimes Tribunal, established in 2010 to try collaborators of Pakistani forces from the 1971 Liberation War, is now handling cases involving the former regime’s actions during the violent suppression of the 2023 uprising.
