In first conviction, Bangladesh’s ousted PM Sheikh Hasina gets 6-month jail for contempt

Bangladesh’s ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was on Wednesday sentenced to six months in prison in a contempt of court case by the International Crimes Tribunal, while it now tries her on a major charge of committing crimes against humanity in absentia.

A three-member panel of the tribunal-1 (ICT), led by Justice Golam Mortuza Mozumder, simultaneously sentenced to two months a fugitive leader of the Bangladesh Chhatra League, Shakil Akanda Bulbul, in the same case.

It marks the first time that 77-year-old Hasina has been sentenced in any case since she left office in August last year.

“According to the verdict, the sentence will come into effect from the day of her arrest or surrender before the court,” chief prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam told reporters after the verdict was handed down.

A state-appointed lawyer is defending Hasina, now staying in India, in the tribunal which earlier declared her a “fugitive” while her trial was opened on Monday initially over the murder of student protester Abu Sayeed.

Sayeed’s killing in northwestern Rangpur University during a demonstration escalated a nationwide violent protest that ultimately ousted her nearly 16-year-long regime on August 5 last year, when she secretly left the country on a military aircraft.

Three days later, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus (85) flew from Paris to take charge of an interim government as the nominee of the protesters who were waging the movement under a platform called Students Against Discrimination (SAD).