Dhaka tribunal sentences seven Awami League leaders to death in absentia over the 2024 uprising

Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal sentenced seven senior Awami League figures to death on 15 September for crimes against humanity tied to the July 2024 uprising that ended Sheikh Hasina's 15 years in office. All seven were tried in absentia. A three-member bench headed by Justice Mohammad Nazrul Islam Chowdhury delivered the verdict.

The condemned are Obaidul Quader, the party's general secretary and a former roads minister; AFM Bahauddin Nasim, joint general secretary; Mohammad Ali Arafat, a former state minister for information and broadcasting; Sheikh Fazle Shams Parash, chairman of the Jubo League; Mainul Hossain Khan Nikhil, the Jubo League's general secretary; Saddam Hussain, president of the Chhatra League; and Sheikh Wali Asif Enan, the student wing's general secretary. Prosecutors said they directed, incited or facilitated killings during the crackdown.

The United Nations has estimated that about 1,400 people were killed in July and August 2024. Hasina, 78, was herself sentenced to death in absentia last November. She has rejected the tribunal's authority. After Tuesday's verdict Quader wrote that December is not far off, pointing to Hasina's pledge to return that month.

The bench ordered that 50 percent of the movable and immovable property of Quader, Nasim, Arafat, Parash and Nikhil be confiscated and sold, with the proceeds paid as compensation to those killed or injured, or to their families, through the July Foundation or another statutory body. Chief prosecutor Aminul Islam said most of the four charges against each accused had been proved and that the state was grateful for the sentences.

Sixty-eight people have now been convicted in cases arising from the 2024 crackdown. Twenty-two have received death sentences. Only four of those 22 are in custody. The charges against the seven were framed on 22 January. The trial opened on 17 February. State-appointed lawyers appeared for the accused.

A court the defendants do not accept

Trials in absentia are fast when the defendants are abroad or in hiding and when the bench treats flight as confirmation. They are also easy to attack. Hasina's circle calls the tribunal political. The government of Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, who won a landslide in February in the first election after her fall, has asked for her extradition. The seven new sentences add names to that request list. They do not put anyone on a plane.

Quader's Facebook line about December is a political threat, not a legal brief. If Hasina tries to return, she faces a death sentence that her own side says is void. If she stays away, the tribunal will keep adding verdicts against people who are not in the dock. The confiscation orders are the part that can bite inside Bangladesh. Property that can be found can be sold. Property that has already been moved cannot.

What the numbers hide

Twenty-two death sentences and four people in custody is a ratio that tells you the campaign is aimed at a leadership that has left the country. The 1,400 dead remain the moral weight of the file. Families who expect money from confiscated houses will discover that asset-tracing is slow and that half of a politician's declared property is not the same as half of what he owns.

The Awami League is banned. Its student and youth wings were the street machine of the old order. Sentencing their presidents and secretaries is meant to close that machine. It also creates martyrs for a party that still has voters, even if it no longer has a legal name on a ballot.

Justice Chowdhury's bench will be asked to do this again. The docket of 2024 cases is not finished. Each new absentia death sentence will look like the last one until a defendant is actually in a cell in Dhaka, and that has happened only four times.