The aunt of Labour MP Tulip Siddiq has been charged with crimes against humanity for allegedly participating in mass killings during anti-government protests in Bangladesh.
Arrest warrants have been issued for both the ousted Bangladeshi prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, and former interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan, who are understood to be in India. Chowdhury Abdullah Al Mamun, former police chief, has been arrested.
It comes after Ms Hasina fled to India following student-led protests, which later became an anti-government uprising, saw the end of her 15-year rule in the South Asian state last August.
According to the UN, as many as 1,400 people are believed to have been killed during protests last Summer after her Awami League government clamped down on marchers in Dhaka.
Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) said the autocratic ruler ‘directly’ instructed state security forces, her party as well as its associates to implement actions that led to mass killings and injuries.
They also allege such operations saw targeted violence against women and children, wounded being denied medical treatment, and bodies being burnt.
In an investigative report last May, the 77-year-old was named as a ‘mastermind, conductor and superior commander’ of the brutalities against protesters.
The authoritarian leader provoked violence during a press conference at Ganabhaban on July 14, according to charges.
One of the charges says Ms Hasina reportedly ordered for protesters to be killed using, lethal weapons, helicopters, and drones.
Another alleges under similar instructions, officers shot and burned six unarmed protesters in the Bangladeshi capital on August 5, 2024.
Manynul Karim, the International Crimes Tribunal prosecutor, claimed to the Telegraph: ‘Eyewitness testified that a young protester among them was burned alive after being shot and left wounded. He was still alive as the bodies burned.’
The charges part of a wider probe against Ms Hasina, whose premiership saw allegations of election-rigging to maintain her grip on the state, as well as accusations of human rights violations.
The alleged human rights violations facing the 77-year-old include torture, extensive arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial executions as well as enforced disappearances of adults and children.
‘We have strong evidence, including telephonic conversations, that Hasina, under her superior command responsibility, ordered crimes against humanity, including murder of students,’ Mr Karim told the publication.
‘If proven guilty, she will face capital punishment. If she doesn’t join the trial, it will be presumed that she is involved in the crimes against humanity, and the court might start a trial in absentia.’
Ms Hasina has not yet answered the charges placed against her, but if found guilty she could face a death sentence for the alleged crimes.
A diplomatic row is currently brewing between India and Bangladesh after India confirmed they had received communication regarding Ms Hasina’s extradition but had declined to comment further.
It comes after the country’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has launched a larger probe into the reported illegal allocation of state-owned land and property by Ms Hasina to her children as well as family, which includes former Labour MP, Ms Siddiq.
The investigation also involves claims Ms Siddiq and four family members embezzled £4 billion through a nuclear powerplant deal struck with Russia,
Ms Siddiq resigned as City minister in January – after a corruption probe into her family had begun. Her family deny all the charges against them.
Earlier this year, her lawyers sent a letter to the ACC accusing it of launching ‘targeted and baseless’ investigations into her, claiming the corruption allegations against their client are ‘false and vexatious.’
£90 million worth of properties tied to the ex Bangladeshi regime have since been frozen by the National Crime Agency (NCA) in the UK.