00:00Bangladesh prosecution lawyers demanded on the 16th of October that fugitive ex-prime minister
00:12Sheikh Hasina receive the death penalty in her trial for crimes against humanity.
00:18Hasina has defied court orders to return from India, where she fled last year, to face charges
00:24of ordering a deadly crackdown in a failed attempt to crush a student-led uprising.
00:30According to the United Nations, up to 1,400 people were killed in the clashes between July
00:37and August 2024.
00:41Chief Prosecutor Tajul Islam told reporters outside court,
00:45We demand the highest punishment for her.
00:48The prosecutor added,
00:49For a single murder, one death penalty is the rule.
00:53For 1,400 murders, she should be sentenced 1,400 times.
00:59But since that is not humanly possible, we demand at least one.
01:04The prosecution alleges that Hasina, 78, was the nucleus around whom all the crimes committed
01:11during the July-August uprising revolved.
01:15She is being tried in absentia alongside two former senior officials.
01:20Her ex-interior minister, Asaduzaman Khan Kamal, is also a fugitive, while former police chief
01:27Chowdhury Abdullah al-Mamun is in custody and has pleaded guilty.
01:32The prosecution said that Kamal should also face the death penalty.
01:35The trial, which opened on June 1st, has heard months of testimony alleging Hasina's role
01:42in ordering or failing to prevent mass killings.
01:46Her goal was to cling to power permanently, for herself and her family, prosecutor said,
01:52adding.
01:53She has turned into a hardened criminal and shows no remorse for the brutality she has committed.
01:58Prosecutors have filed five charges, including failure to prevent murder, which amount to
02:09crimes against humanity under Bangladeshi law.
02:13Hasina's now-banned Awami League says that she categorically denies the charges.
02:18Hasina has a state-appointed lawyer, but refuses to recognize the court's authority.
02:23The trial is in its final stages, with the interim government aiming to steer the Muslim
02:29majority nation of 170 million towards elections in February.
02:35Witnesses have included a man whose face was ripped apart by gunshot during the culmination
02:40of the protests.
02:42The prosecution also played audio tapes, matched by police with verified recordings of Hasina,
02:48that suggested she directly ordered security forces to use lethal weapons against protesters,
02:55and that wherever they find them, they will shoot.
02:59Hasina, already convicted in July for contempt of court and sentenced in absentia to six months
03:06in prison, also faces ongoing corruption cases.
03:10Relatives, including her daughter, Saima Weized, who has served as a senior UN official,
03:16and her niece Tulip Siddiq, a British lawmaker, also face corruption charges, which they deny.
03:24The daughter of a revolutionary who led Bangladesh to independence in 1971,
03:29Hasina presided over breakneck economic growth.
03:33Critics accused her government of unjustly jailing her chief rival, passing draconian anti-press
03:40freedom laws and perpetrating a litany of rights abuses, including the murder of
03:45opposition activists.
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