Sheikh Hasina cannot appeal even if she receives a death sentence from ICT. Here’s why
The International Crimes Tribunal-1 will deliver its verdict on the deposed prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, on November 17. Prosecutors are hoping the verdict results in a death sentence for multiple accounts of crimes against humanity.
Tribunal-1, a three-member bench, is headed by Justice Md Golam Mortuza Majumder.
Hasina, 78, is currently residing in India, after defying the tribunal’s orders to face trial for ordering a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising on August 5 last year.
Prosecutor Gazi Monawar Hossain Tamim told the Daily Star that the accused cannot avail the right to appeal while on the run.
According to the law, a convict must be arrested or surrender to authorities to qualify for filing an appeal at the appellate division of the Supreme Court.
"The appeal must be lodged within 30 days of the verdict, and the law mandates that the Appellate Division dispose of the appeal within 60 days of its filing," he told The Daily Star.
Hasina is facing a total of five charges, and prosecutors have sought the death penalty if she is found guilty. Apart from ordering a crackdown on protesters last year, she is also facing cases over enforced disappearances and one concerning the alleged mass killings at the Motijheel's Shapla Chattar in 2013.
In an exclusive article for THE WEEK, Hasina denied all charges against her. She called the prosecution "compromised" and said that the court was "weaponised for the political ends of an unelected government, with the sole aim of silencing opposition."
The co-accused former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, also a fugitive, and former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, who is in custody and has pleaded guilty. Kamal is facing two enforced disappearance cases. Mamun, meanwhile, became a state witness, the first accused to do so since the tribunal was set up in 2010.
Prosecutors also asked the tribunal to confiscate the three defendants' assets if convicted and distribute them among the victims' families.
They submitted a 135 page chargesheet which was accompanied by 8,747 pages of documents and evidence.
On July 2, the ICT sentanced hasina to six months imprisonment for contempt of court over remarks made during a phone call conversations with a local leader about the tribunal.
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