Bangladesh's ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina has vowed to return to her country despite facing a death sentence. “My decision to return to Bangladesh is not about personal desire or political ambition. It is about duty,” Hasina said.
Hasina, 78, has lived in exile in India since fleeing Bangladesh in August 2024 after a student-led uprising ended her 15-year rule. A special tribunal last year sentenced her to death in absentia after convicting her of crimes against humanity over the deadly crackdown on the protests.
The UN estimates the violence killed about 1,400 people. Hasina’s Awami League party has been banned and she faces several additional criminal cases.
“A death sentence, false cases and staged trials cannot frighten me,” Hasina said. She also called the death penalty “part of an illegal, unconstitutional and politically motivated process”.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by Tarique Rahman, took office earlier this year after winning an election from which Hasina’s party was barred. The new government has taken a legalistic stance on her planned return, insisting she will face justice.
Bangladeshi Law Minister M Asaduzzaman said in late July that Hasina would probably be arrested immediately if she returned.
Hasina said she did not leave Bangladesh by choice, saying she had “only 30 to 40 minutes” to evacuate her official residence as protesters approached and that she did not know she was leaving. She said she had instead prepared to travel to Tungipara, her ancestral hometown.
Hasina also denied that there had been any back-channel discussions with the BNP-led government before she announced her intention to return to Bangladesh.
“I know anything can happen to me but Bangladesh needs reconciliation,” she told journalists in New Delhi at a media conference, which she joined remotely from an undisclosed location. “I have decided to be with my people in December.”
