A special tribunal in Bangladesh on Monday sentenced Dhaka’s former police chief and two senior police officials to death for crimes against humanity committed during the rule of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
A three-judge panel of the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh (ICT-BD), headed by Justice Mohammad Golam Mortuza Mozumder, delivered the verdict against former Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) commissioner Habibur Rahman, former DMP joint commissioner Sudip Kumar Chakraborty, and additional deputy commissioner Mohammad Akhtarul Islam. All three were tried and convicted in absentia.
This marks the second verdict delivered by the restructured ICT-BD. Earlier, the tribunal had sentenced deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal to death in a separate case.
The latest verdict comes ahead of Bangladesh’s general elections scheduled for February 12, the first polls in the country since Hasina was overthrown in August 2024. In the same case, five other former police officers were found guilty and sentenced to varying prison terms.
The case relates to the killing of six protesters in Dhaka on August 5, 2024— the day Sheikh Hasina fled to India as demonstrators stormed her official residence. According to United Nations estimates, up to 1,400 people were killed between July and August 2024 during a crackdown by Hasina’s government aimed at suppressing the protest movement.
Reading out the verdict in court, Justice Mozumder said police forces had “opened fire with lethal weapons… causing death to the aforesaid six persons.” The tribunal heard that Habibur Rahman had sent messages to police units directing them to use lethal force to crush the protests.
Chief prosecutor Tajul Islam welcomed the verdict against the three senior officers, though he expressed dissatisfaction with the sentences awarded to the five other convicted officials, saying he had sought harsher punishment for them.
Former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, who appeared before the court and pleaded guilty, was sentenced to five years in prison.
Also read: Bangladesh unrest: Another Hindu man burnt to death
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