Disgraced former leader Sheikh Hasina plans return to Bangladesh from exile
Former prime minister faces death penalty upon return after being sentenced in absentia over deaths in 2024 uprising
Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Aakash Hassan in Delhi
Sheikh Hasina is “confident” she will return to Bangladesh in December, according to exiled members of her party, after the disgraced former prime minister of Bangladesh applied for a new passport this week.
Hasina has been living in self-imposed exile since August 2024 when she was toppled from power by a mass uprising against her authoritarian rule. She crossed the border to India, where she has since been allowed to live freely in Delhi.
Last November, a tribunal in Bangladesh found Hasina guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced her to death over her crackdown on a student uprising that left an estimated 1,400 people dead.
Her return to Bangladesh is likely to be disruptive for the country where Hasina’s party, Awami League, is still banned and thousands of its members are in jail. Should she be allowed to return, she is likely to be arrested immediately.
Hasina first raised the prospect of going back to Bangladesh in August. Speaking to the Guardian this week, several exiled Awami League leaders also living in India confirmed that Hasina was serious and “confident” about returning by next month. They confirmed that several other party figures had already returned in anticipation.
On Monday, a British lawyer acting on behalf of Hasina wrote to the Bangladesh high commission in Delhi requesting a new passport and national identity card to be issued “in a timely fashion”, in a letter seen by the Guardian.
“The reason our leader Sheikh Hasina has applied for a passport is that she genuinely wants to return,” said a party leader based in the Indian city of Kolkata, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media on the party’s behalf.
Hasina has rejected the charges against her and claimed the tribunal that convicted her was illegitimate. “She is confident about her return, which is why she has applied for a new passport and a national identity card. If the authorities do not issue her a passport, she will apply for a travel pass to make her return to Bangladesh possible,” said the Awami League leader.
Since Hasina’s conviction, the Bangladesh government has put pressure on the Indian authorities to extradite the former prime minister. However, the Indian government, which was close to Hasina while she was in power, has ignored the demands, straining ties between the two countries.
This week, the Bangladesh government said that, as a “terrorist”, Hasina would only be allowed to return via an “acceptable prisoner exchange” under the India-Bangladesh extradition treaty.
Aminul Islam, the chief prosecutor of the tribunal that sentenced Hasina, said there was “no legal scope” for her to be issued a new passport as she was a “convicted fugitive”.
Islam emphasised that Hasina would be hanged if she returned, as the deadline for her to appeal against her conviction had passed. “Sheikh Hasina has no option but to face the execution of the verdict,” he said.
Despite her conviction and the party’s ban, Hasina still commands significant popularity among the thousands of Awami League cadre still in Bangladesh, many of whom have been driven underground.
Analysts said they believed her decision to return was driven by an attempt to revive her support base and destabilise the newly elected government, led by Tarique Rahman. It came to power in February during Bangladesh’s first democratic election in decades.
The government has since struggled with inflation and protests that shut down garment factories, which the Awami League hopes to use to its advantage.
Another Awami League leader said all those in exile intended to follow Hasina back to Bangladesh, despite many of them facing serious criminal charges and having been given lengthy prison sentences in absentia.
“Some of us have been sentenced in absentia by kangaroo courts, and we know we will be jailed. But we are ready to face the consequences and return to our own people. We will fight this politically,” said the senior leader, who is based in India.
Some senior party figures have returned in recent months, including the former MP Mustaque Ahmed Ruhi. He was immediately arrested on his return in September and faces prosecution over an alleged murder during the 2024 uprising.
Exiled Awami League leaders have continued to meet in Kolkata, where many of them are living, and are routinely summoned to Delhi to meet Hasina.
Speaking over email this week, Hasina told the Associated Press: “If death is my destiny, I would rather die on the soil of my own country, among my own people.”
