INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
crackdown against anti-government protests last year that left more than 1,400 people dead.Hasina, who fled the country on 5 August last
year, was charged in absentia by a three-judge panel on Thursday
She remains in hiding in neighbouring India and has ignored formal requests for her to return.Bangladeshi prosecutors have spent months
gathering evidence to bring Hasina to trial for alleged crimes committed during her 15 years in power, including the mass killing of
students who rose up against her authoritarian regime in July last year.The panel, called the international crimes tribunal, indicted
Hasina, her former interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan and the former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah al-Mamun on five charges, including
against student-led protests that erupted across Bangladesh and eventually led to the fall of her government.As widely documented by human
rights groups, the police fired live ammunition at protesters across the country, leading to mass casualties, and arbitrarily arrested tens
of thousands of civilians in an attempt to crush the uprising.Lawyers have argued that orders for the killings came directly from Hasina,
the indictment and described the tribunal as a kangaroo court, despite Hasina having established it in 2009 to investigate crimes committed
issued three arrest warrants for Hasina
It also sentenced her to six months in jail earlier this month for contempt of court after a leaked audio recording emerged of her saying:
Prosecutors said al-Mamun had already pleaded guilty and had agreed to testify as a state witness against his accomplices.It remains unclear
whether Hasina will be forcibly brought back to Bangladesh to face the mounting accusations against her, including widespread corruption
The interim government, led Mohammad Yunus, confirmed it had sent India several extradition requests, but that they had so far been
