adminDHAKA, Nov 11 (Bernama-dpa) — Bangladeshi authorities have rejected a request by exiled former prime minister Sheikh Hasina for a passport and national identity card to facilitate her return from India, saying she must instead be extradited to serve her death sentence, reported German Press Agency (dpa).
“Under the passport law, if an accused evades the judicial process or remains a fugitive, no passport can be issued on their behalf,” Aminul Islam, chief prosecutor of Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), said in Dhaka on Tuesday.
Islam said Hasina could legally return only through extradition under a treaty signed between Bangladesh and India in 2013.
The ICT sentenced Hasina to death in November last year for “crimes against humanity” committed during the student-led mass uprising in 2024, which ended her 15-year rule.
Hasina, 79, has been living in India since fleeing Bangladesh aboard a military aircraft on Aug 5, 2024. According to a UN estimate, violence surrounding the uprising killed 1,400 people and injured thousands more.
India’s Hindustan Times newspaper reported that Hasina’s London-based lawyers had written to the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi seeking a new passport and national identity card.
The newspaper described the request as her clearest step yet towards acting on her stated intention to return.
Hasina has told party leaders and activists during recent online meetings that she would return home at any cost.
Islam, however, said she had been a fugitive even before her conviction.
“An arrest warrant has been issued to bring her back, and a notice has been published in newspapers. She has evaded judicial proceedings against her,” he said.
— BERNAMA-dpa
