Ousted Bangladeshi leader vows to return from exile despite facing a death sentence : NPR

Ousted Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Hasina said she plans to return to her country despite being sentenced to death by a court there during her two-year exile.

In her first public address since fleeing to India after a violent crackdown on a youth-led uprising in 2024, she said: “Whatever fate awaits me, I will return to my people.”

Hasina added: “I may be detained, I may be sent to prison, they may try to enforce verdicts issued in fabricated cases, but fear cannot decide my duty to the people.”

The 78-year-old, who served five terms as Bangladesh’s prime minister, made the announcement in an audio address at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia in New Delhi on Wednesday. Her son, Sajeeb Wazed, also joined via video link from Washington, D.C.

Hasina’s speech marked the second anniversary of her ouster. She fled Bangladesh by helicopter following weeks of protests in 2024 that left nearly 1,400 people dead, according to the United Nations.

Hasina has denied any wrongdoing during that period.

Hasina blames uprising on ‘coordinated assault’

Students shout slogans during a protest demanding the trial of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024.

Rajib Dhar/AP

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Rajib Dhar/AP

Students shout slogans during a protest demanding the trial of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024.

Rajib Dhar/AP

Instead, Hasina on Wednesday blamed the violence on the protesters. “From the beginning, my government tried to resolve the issue peacefully, but it became a coordinated assault on the constitutional order, driven by hidden instruction, organized violence and propaganda,” she said.

Analysts dispute that characterization. Ali Riaz, a professor of political science at Illinois State University, said the uprising was a response to Hasina’s decades-long draconian rule.

“The U.N. report proved that state machinery was used against civilians. Killing 1,400 people in less than three weeks demonstrates the ferocity of the actions taken by her government and under her direct instruction,” Riaz said. “Her narration of history is simply ignoring the facts of what happened on the ground.”

Following her departure, Hasina’s Awami League party was banned. And in 2025, a tribunal in Dhaka sentenced her to death in absentia for alleged crimes against humanity, among other charges, for her role in the crackdown during the protests. Hasina has dismissed the verdict as legally void.