Bangladesh’s deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina was on Wednesday sentenced to six months in prison by the International Crimes Tribunal in a contempt of court case, according to media reports.
A three-member panel of the tribunal-1 (ICT), led by Justice Md Golam Mortuza Mozumder, passed the order after reviewing a leaked phone conversation involving the ousted Awami League leader that circulated on social media last year, The Daily Star newspaper reported.
It marks the first time that 72-year-old Hasina has been sentenced in any case since she left office in August last year.
In the audio clip, the ousted premier is allegedly heard telling former Gobindaganj upazila chairman and banned Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) leader Shakil Akand Bulbul, "I have had 227 cases filed against me, so I have received a licence to kill 227 people." The tribunal considered the statement contemptuous and a direct attempt to undermine the court.
The tribunal also convicted and sentenced Bulbul to two months' imprisonment, the state-run BSS news agency reported.
In its judgment, the tribunal said the sentences would come into effect from the day of their arrest or surrender, it added.
Hasina faces multiple cases in Bangladesh after being ousted on August 5 last year following a major student-led agitation in the country, which forced her to flee Dhaka.
After Hasina's ouster, the 84-year-old Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus took over as the head of an interim government in Bangladesh in August last year.
Most leaders of the Awami League and ministers of the past regime, including several officials, were arrested or were on the run at home and abroad as the government initiated their trial for brutal actions to tame the uprising, leaving several hundred people, including students, dead.
Hasina and her regime leaders are being prosecuted in Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal, formed in 2010 for trying hardened collaborators of Pakistani troops during the 1971 Liberation War on charges like crimes against humanity.
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