A special tribunal sentenced Bangladesh’s ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday to death on charges of crimes against humanity involving last year’s mass uprising that killed hundreds of people and ended her 15-year rule.

The tribunal also sentenced former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan to death in the case while a third suspect — a former police chief — was sentenced to five years in prison as he became a state witness against Hasina and pleaded guilty.

The deliberation of the verdict from the tribunal in the capital, Dhaka, was broadcast live.

The interim government beefed up security ahead of the verdict, with paramilitary border guards and police deployed in Dhaka and many other parts of the country.

Hasina’s Awami League party has called for a nationwide shutdown to protest the verdict.

Hasina and Khan, who have been in exile in India, were tried in absentia.

Both Hasina and her party have called the tribunal a “kangaroo court” and denounced the appointment of a lawyer by the state to represent her.

Hasina and Khan faced the charges of crimes against humanity over the killing of hundreds of people during a student-led uprising in July and August of 2024.

The United Nations in a February report said up to 1,400 may have been killed in the violence, while the country’s health adviser under the interim government said more than 800 people were killed and about 14,000 were injured. (AP)