UN Chief opposes death penalty for Sheikh Hasina

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opposed the death penalty handed to Bangladesh’s ex-PM Sheikh Hasina by a local tribunal. The UN stressed trials in absentia must meet international fair trial standards, echoing Human Rights Chief Volker Turk’s stance.

United Nations: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is against the death penalty imposed on Sheikh Hasina by a Bangladesh court, according to his Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.

“We stand against the use of the death penalty in all circumstances”, he said on Monday, replying to a question at his daily briefing on the sentence imposed in absentia on the leader who is in exile in India.

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Dujarric cited a statement by UN Human Rights High Commissioner Volker Turk and said that “we fully agree with” his opposition to death penalty.

He added, “I’d refer you to what Volker Türk’s office said, that the verdicts delivered today is an important moment for victims of the grave violations committed during the suppression of protests last year in Bangladesh”.

The death penalty was handed down by a local court comprised of solely of Bangladeshi judges that styled itself “the International Crimes Tribunal”, which convicted her of “crimes against humanity”.

The court was originally created to try Pakistanis and their Bangladeshi collaborators who carried out a genocide during the Bangladesh Liberation War.

It was revived by Muhammad Yunus, the unelected leader controlling the nation, and his supporters to try Sheikh Hasina and others on charges relating to the suppression of student protests last year that led to her fleeing country.

Turk’s Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani, in a statement issued in Geneva, said the verdicts against Hasina and her Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal “is an important moment for victims of the grave violations committed during the suppression of protests last year”.

But she acknowledged, “We were not privy to the conduct of this trial” and said such proceedings should “unquestionably meet international standards of due process and fair trial” when it is conducted in absentia with the possibility of death penalty.