Bangladesh’s fugitive former prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, has expressed regret over the “needless” bloodshed as her administration tried to squash student-led protests that resulted in her losing power after 15 years, but poured scorn on a tribunal due to rule if she committed crimes against humanity by ordering the crackdown.
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In a defiant interview with This Week in Asia just days before the verdict in her trial in absentia, the 78-year-old accused the interim government that replaced her of a politically motivated attack, as well as preparing to hold elections without the “consent” of millions of Bangladeshis who still support her Awami League party.
About 1,400 people died last year as state forces opened fire on student protesters after demonstrations that had begun as a rally against job quotas morphed into a violent uprising that drove Hasina and her government from office.
That ended her long stranglehold on power and forced her to take refuge in India.
Since then, her regime, decried as autocratic and corrupt by many Bangladeshis, has been replaced by an interim government headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, which has set out on ambitious reforms vowing to hold fresh elections by February.
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Hasina, part of Bangladesh’s complex political history as the daughter of independence hero Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, headed the Awami League which dominated for more than a decade and steered the economy’s growth.