Hasina says she will return to Bangladesh in December despite death sentence

Sheikh Hasina answered Associated Press questions last week and replied on Wednesday, AsiaOne reported. She first named December in August.

A return would put Hasina within reach of the courts that tried her in absentia. It would test India's refusal to hand her over. It would also land on Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, whose government barred her Awami League from February's election. Neither government has said what it would do if she arrives.

The December pledge

Hasina is 78. She has lived in India since August 2024, when the uprising forced her from power.

In the email interview she set out the risk plainly. "If death is my destiny, I would rather die on the soil of my own country, among my own people," she told the AP. She said she knew she could be arrested, imprisoned, tortured or killed after landing. She said she could not spend the rest of her life watching her people suffer from a distance. At a virtual press conference from Delhi earlier this year, she was blunter still: "the moment I will land they can kill me, or they can arrest me and torture me".

She has not said how she would travel from India, or whether any arrangement exists with the authorities in Dhaka. In a September interview she said she would announce the date, time and point of entry later. She said she did not aim to regain power by returning.

The sentence she would return to

The International Crimes Tribunal in Dhaka sentenced Hasina to death in absentia in November 2025. The court found her guilty of crimes against humanity over the crackdown on student-led protests in July and August 2024. A three-judge bench convicted her of incitement, orders to kill and failure to prevent atrocities. Reading the verdict, Justice Golam Mortuza Mozumder said she had "committed crimes against humanity by her order to use drones, helicopters and lethal weapons" against civilians. The court issued punishments across five charges. Two counts drew death sentences.

The UN human rights office estimated that up to 1,400 people were killed during the uprising, the worst political violence in Bangladesh since the 1971 independence war. The same office called the sentencing "an important moment for victims" but opposed the death penalty in all circumstances. Hasina rejected the verdict as a "politically motivated charade" and denied wrongdoing.

The tribunal also sentenced former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan to death in the same case. Khan may also be in India, though his whereabouts are unclear. Hasina may appeal to the Supreme Court. Dhaka's foreign ministry has urged India to "immediately extradite the two convicts", calling it "an obligatory responsibility".

India has not done so. The two countries signed an extradition treaty in 2013, but it allows refusal where the offence is political.

The politics she returns to

Much has changed since she left. Muhammad Yunus led an interim administration for about 18 months. Tarique Rahman, son of former prime minister Khaleda Zia, then won a landslide in the February 2026 election. The government barred Hasina's Awami League from contesting that vote. The party remains under a ban, with senior leaders under arrest or in exile.

She alleges that killings have claimed at least 20,000 Awami League members since August 2024, a figure Pakistan Today noted has not been independently verified. She says thousands more faced arrest, torture or forced hiding, and that supporters lost homes and businesses. Human Rights Watch has criticised Rahman's government over attacks on civil and political rights in recent months. Rights groups have also raised concerns about the treatment of opposition figures and minority communities. The government says arrests follow specific charges.

What is still unknown

No date, time or point of entry has been announced. Bangladesh's prime minister's office did not respond to requests for comment on her statements, Pakistan Today reported.

Hasina says she is not asking for foreign protection. "I do not need the blessing of a foreign power to return to my own country," she told the AP. Whether Dhaka would arrest her on arrival, and how New Delhi would handle a departure it has so far blocked, remain open questions.

The sentence stands and the ban stands. The month she has named is December.