Farhad Mazhar says trying Hasina in old tribunal was a mistake that risks global doubts

He cautions that critics will say the process looked retaliatory

Columnist and thinker Farhad Mazhar believes the trial of Sheikh Hasina was essential, yet holding it in the International Crimes Tribunal, which was forged by the deposed prime minister herself, was “not the right decision”.

He argued that a newly constituted tribunal would have earned international credibility, whereas the current process risked prompting doubts and accusations of retribution.

Speaking on bdnews24.com’s flagship discussion programme Inside Out on Sunday, he set out his concerns shortly after the tribunal delivered its ruling on Nov 17 in the July Uprising cases involving crimes against humanity.

Hasina, alongside her home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, was sentenced to death, while former police inspector general Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, who turned state witness, was handed down a “lenient” five-year prison term.

Mazhar said the death verdict against Hasina was inherently “problematic” internationally. Capital punishment, he noted, had no broad global acceptance, making the ruling vulnerable to challenge.

He recalled how Hasina’s government had executed Jamaat-e-Islami leaders under what he called “retroactive legislation”, introduced specifically to enable executions, which he described as a “grave act”.

Since lawmakers had passed that law, Mazhar argued they, too, should face trial for enabling a legal framework he believes amounted to an act of killing “in the name of legislation”.

He warned that the death sentence would trigger multiple complications. Critics, he said, would frame the verdict as retaliation rather than justice.

Mazhar insisted that Hasina -- whom he characterised as a “fascist” leader responsible for grave injustices -- should not be dealt with merely by execution. He emphasised that every wrongdoing needed to be proven meticulously, not settled through a process that could be dismissed as “politically motivated”.

Mazhar criticised the decision to use the existing tribunal, arguing that the new constitutional order following the July Uprising required a fresh court built with international norms incorporated from the outset.

He said such a tribunal would have offered legitimacy globally. For this reason, he and others had long demanded a Truth and Reconciliation Council -- a mechanism Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus, head of the interim government, ultimately did not pursue.

A council, Mazhar said, would have allowed those who committed crimes under Hasina’s orders to confess and receive mitigated responsibility, while exposing the actual masterminds behind abuses.

Referring to allegations of crimes against humanity involving Army officers during the Awami League era, he noted that cases had already been filed in the same tribunal, including two cases involving 13 officers.

He said trying Army personnel there was also inappropriate and reflected a reluctance within the government to genuinely pursue accountability for implicated officers.

Mazhar said, “You are taking Army officers to this court. Fine -- if you can try them, then do so. But such a trial will take a decade.”

This, he argued, showed an unwillingness to see those cases through. Those responsible for grievous acts -- enforced disappearances, running secret detention sites -- were being shielded, he said, because the tribunal process itself would drag on indefinitely and thus delay any execution of responsibility.

He questioned why the military justice system was not used. Addressing Yunus directly, he said the interim prime minister could have instructed the then Chief of Army Staff General Waker-uz-Zaman to try the suspects under military law.

Mazhar asked why such trials did not occur and whether this reflected an attempt to protect those involved.

He added that without thorough investigations, genuine offenders might escape punishment, while some officers who simply followed orders under the chain of command could be wrongly held responsible.

In the military, he said, personnel act on command; the legal challenge is determining whether culpability lies with the officer carrying out orders or the officer who issued them.

The current tribunal, he argued, lacked any legal mechanism capable of “drawing that distinction reliably”.