A Bangladeshi court has issued an arrest warrant for the exiled former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The court has also issued arrest warrants against Hasina’s Awami League party’s former general secretary Obaidul Qadir and 44 others. Hasina fled to India last August at the height of the movement led by the student group.
Relatives of one of the hundreds who lost their lives in the rebellion against the government led by her said that they are waiting for the hearing of the case. Prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam, who is arguing and pleading the case against Hasina, referred to the day of Hasina’s ouster as a ‘remarkable day’. Hasina’s administration has been accused of widespread human rights violations, mass detention of political opponents and extrajudicial killings during her 15-year rule.
Islam, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICT) of Bangladesh, said that the court has ordered the arrest of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and to produce her in court on November 18. Islam said that since July to August, those who committed genocide, murder and crimes against humanity were led by the then administration and its executive Prime Minister Hasina, and because it was necessary to arrest and investigate other accused including him, Islam said that the arrest warrant was issued.
Dozens of Hasina’s allies were detained after the fall of Hasina’s regime, and she was convicted of a police crackdown that killed more than 700 people during protests to oust her. Former ministers and other senior members of her Awami League party have been arrested, and political appointees made by his government, as well as some officials in the courts and central bank, have been removed from office. Hasina has not been seen in public since fleeing Bangladesh by helicopter. 77-year-old Hasina was last seen at a military airbase near India’s capital, New Delhi.
Her stay in India, once Hasina’s biggest benefactor, and her political activities from there have angered Bangladesh’s new interim government. Dhaka has canceled his diplomatic passport. The two countries have a bilateral extradition treaty that would allow her to face criminal charges. However, in an article of the treaty, it is mentioned that extradition can be refused in case of a crime of ‘political character’. Family members of doctor Sajib Sarkar, who was killed last July during protests against Hasina, are among those who filed the case in the court. “We want the government to take steps to bring back the former prime minister as soon as possible and make him accountable,” Sumaiya Sarkar, Sajeeb’s sister, told AFP. “We are waiting for a fair hearing.”
The case has been registered with the War Crimes Court, which was established in 2010 by Hasina’s government to investigate the atrocities committed during the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. The United Nations and rights groups have criticized its procedural weaknesses and it was widely seen as a means for Hasina to eliminate political opponents. The court is investigating Hasina accusing her of planning the ‘mass murder’ of the protestors.
With Hasina’s escape, Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammad Yunus has been entrusted with the responsibility of the interim government. Yunus, 84, who pioneered change in the microfinance sector in Bangladesh, is leading an interim administration to tackle the ‘extremely difficult’ challenge of restoring democratic institutions. Yunus said he had inherited a “totally broken” system of public administration and justice, and that sweeping reforms were needed to prevent a future return to autocracy.
