In 2013, Bangladesh and India signed a criminal extradition treaty,” the head prosecutor of ICT claims.
- Hasina is charged with conducting “massacres” by the head prosecutor for ICT.
- Will make an effort to legally bring her back for a trial, according to M Tajul Islam.
- An Indian military airbase was the ex-prime minister’s last known location.
DHAKA: The administration led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has said that it will start the legal process to bring back former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled to India last month after violent protests. This announcement was made about a month after the current interim government in Bangladesh took office.
Bangladesh’s Chief of the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), Mohammad Tajul Islam, told reporters on Sunday that “we will start the legal procedure to bring her back as the main perpetrator has fled the country” and accused the former prime minister of carrying out “massacres.”
Islam’s remarks follow the declaration of Mohammad Touhid Hossain, the nation’s de facto foreign minister, who stated that the nation “would have to ask for her return” because she was dealing with “so many cases”.
On August 5, Hasina left the nation for India following a violent rebellion that claimed hundreds of lives, many of them students. She and key members of her government have already been named in two murder cases.
Several of her former advisors and ministers have also been taken into custody.
“While Hasina’s government was in office, Bangladesh and India signed a criminal extradition treaty in 2013.” We will work to lawfully repatriate her to Bangladesh so that she can stand trial, given that she has been named as the primary suspect in the massacres there,” stated the chief prosecutor for ICT.
Hasina established the ICT in 2010, although her government has been charged with several violations of human rights, such as the extrajudicial killings and widespread incarceration of her political rivals.
Hasina was last known to be at a military airbase close to New Delhi, the capital of India. Bangladesh is angry that she is in India.
Since the two nations have a bilateral extradition pact, Dhaka has canceled her diplomatic passport, allowing her to return and face a criminal trial.
However, a provision in the treaty states that refusal of extradition may occur if the offense is “political.”
It was last week that Yunus, the acting leader, advised Hasina to “keep quiet” while she was in exile in India until her return for a trial.
“She would have to remain silent if India wanted to retain her until Bangladesh wanted her back,” Yunus, 84, stated to the Press Trust of India news agency.
Because of the hundreds of protestors who were slain during the weeks of upheaval that finally led to her downfall, the public has put pressure on his government to demand her extradition and trial.
An early United Nations study claimed that around 600 people had died in the weeks preceding Hasina’s overthrow, although the number was “probably underestimated.”
Last month, Bangladesh launched an inquiry into hundreds of forced disappearances carried out by security agents under Hasina’s administration, under the direction of a retired high court judge.