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Fugitive ex-PM says Bangladesh vote risks deepening divide
The Mercury
|October 30, 2025
BANGLADESH'S fugitive ex-leader Sheikh Hasina warned yesterday that holding elections without her party - the first since her overthrow - was "sowing the seeds" of further division in her country.
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In written responses, her first interview since being ousted, Hasina also condemned her crimes against humanity trial as a "jurisprudential joke", adding she believed a guilty verdict was "preordained".
Toppled in August 2024 by a student-led uprising that ended her 15-year autocratic rule, Hasina fled by helicopter as crowds stormed her palace.
The UN says up to 1 400 people were killed in crackdowns as she tried to cling to power - deaths now at the centre of her trial.
The 78-year-old former prime minister has been in hiding ever since, hosted by old ally India.
But she remains defiant, and, in comments likely to enrage the many who say she made a ruthless bid to maintain power at all costs, she said she "mourned all the lives lost during the terrible days" when students were gunned down in the streets.
This story is from the October 30, 2025 edition of The Mercury.
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