Drones, helicopter, crackdown on students: Why Sheikh Hasina has been given death penalty

The tribunal judges said that there was evidence that Hasina herself gave orders to use drones, helicopters and lethal weapons against the protesters in Dhaka.

A Bangladesh court on Monday sentenced former prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, to death on three counts of charges of crimes against humanity related to the student protests held in Dhaka last year that led to her ouster and escape to India.

She was found guilty on three counts of charges.(AFP)

Judge Golam Mortuza Mozumder, while reading the court’s order, said that Hasina was “found guilty on three counts”, which include incitement, order to kill and failing to take any action to prevent the atrocities.

Read latest updates related to Sheikh Hasina's verdict here.

"We have decided to inflict her with only one sentence -- that is, sentence of death,” he said.

‘Ordered to use drones, helicopters’

The court also said that there was evidence that Hasina herself gave orders to use drones, helicopters and lethal weapons against the protesters in Dhaka.

“The accused prime minister committed crimes against humanity by her order to use drones, helicopters and lethal weapons,” the judge read.

The International Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh's domestic war crimes court, delivered the verdict amid tight security across the capital. The ruling comes months before parliamentary elections scheduled for next year.

The interim government had increased the security before the verdict. Paramilitary border guards and police were stationed in Dhaka and in several other areas across the country.

Hasina’s Awami League party had called for a nationwide shutdown to oppose the verdict.

What did Sheikh Hasina say?

In her reaction to the verdict, the ousted prime minister termed the ruling and the death sentence given to her “biased and politically motivated”.

"The verdicts announced against me have been made by a rigged tribunal established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate," Hasina said in a statement, according to AFP.

“They are biased and politically motivated,” she said.

Ahead of the verdict, she said in a message to her supporters that “destroying” her Awami League party is not so easy as it “grew the soil and the people” and not “from the pocket of an illegal power grabber”.

“They do not want the Awami League to engage in politics. They declare the Awami League banned. They do not want the Awami League to contest elections. They want to destroy this party by oppressing its leaders and activists. But this is not that easy. This Awami League grew from the soil and the people. It did not grow from the pocket of an illegal power grabber,” she said.