Bangladesh’s former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, ousted in mass protests last year, has said she hopes a ban on her party will be lifted before general elections due next year.
Hasina made her remarks from India where she fled in August 2024. The special tribunal trying her for crimes against humanity is due to deliver a verdict on Monday.
Hasina is accused of being the main architect behind hundreds of killings during the uprising against her autocratic rule – an allegation she denies.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Hasina if she is found guilty on Monday.
Security has been tightened in and around the tribunal in the capital Dhaka ahead of the verdict.
It will mark a significant moment for the country as well as for the relatives of those killed during the student-led anti-government protests that ousted Hasina.
UN human rights investigators have said up to 1,400 people were killed when Hasina and her government used systematic, deadly violence against protesters in the failed bid to hold onto power.
The former prime minister has refused to return from India to attend the trial.
“We hope that common sense will prevail and that this [election] ban will be lifted. We have tens of millions of supporters who must not be disenfranchised,” Hasina said in written answers to emailed questions from the BBC.
“Whether in government or opposition, the Awami League is part of the national conversation in Bangladesh, and that will not change.”
She said her trial in absentia was a “farce” orchestrated by a “kangaroo court” controlled by political opponents.
Hasina is charged with personally ordering security forces to fire at protesters in the weeks before she fled. She said she “categorically” denied such allegations.
“I’m not denying that the situation got out of control, nor that many lives were lost needlessly. But I never issued any order to fire on unarmed civilians,” she said.
Over the past few months prosecutors have presented the tribunal with evidence they say proves her guilt.
Leaked audio of one of her phone calls verified by BBC Eye earlier this year suggested that she had authorised the use of “lethal weapons” in July 2024. The audio was played in court during the trial.
Hasina was formally indicted along with two others in July this year. They are former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and former inspector general of police Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun.
Prosecutors have sought the death penalty for Kamal, who is in hiding. Mr Chowdhury pleaded guilty in July but has not been handed a sentence.
Speaking about the trial, Hasina said she hadn’t been able to defend herself or appoint her own lawyers.
She added her political opponents had gone after her in an attempt to “liquidate” her Awami League party as a political force ahead of the February 2026 election.
Lawyers representing her issued a statement on Monday saying they had filed an urgent appeal to the UN raising serious fair trial and due process issues at the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh.
Hasina’s answers to the BBC also covered other serious allegations of abuses committed during her 15-year rule, which will be heard in another case at the special tribunal. Hasina denies charges of crimes against humanity in that case too.
After she was ousted from power, a number of secret jails were discovered holding prisoners who had been detained for years without any legal process. Many other critics and opponents of Hasina who had been abducted or held in these prisons are alleged to have been killed unlawfully.
Asked who was responsible for this, Hasina said she “did not have knowledge” of them.
She also denied her involvement in alleged extra-judicial killings and disappearances, which rights group say she was responsible for as the head of government during her leadership.
“This is denied in terms of my own involvement, but if there is evidence of abuse by officials, let us have it examined properly in an impartial, depoliticised process,” she told the BBC.
Hasina and other senior members of her former government are also facing trial for corruption in a separate court, charges they deny.
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