New Delhi : Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was sentenced to death in absentia by a tribunal in her home country, has said she plans to return from exile in India around December and surrender before the courts, despite fearing for her life. “They may arrest me on my return, they may even kill me. Still, I have to go,” Hasina told Reuters in a nearly hour-long telephone interview. “My party leaders and workers are being subjected to tremendous repression.
The remarks mark the first time Hasina has publicly given a timeline for her return and said that senior Awami League leaders would also surrender before the courts. Among those expected to return is former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, who also faces a death sentence, Reuters reported. Hasina was sentenced to death in November 2025 by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal over her alleged role in the crackdown on the 2024 student-led protests.
Hasina fled Bangladesh after a student-led mass uprising in August 2024 brought down her government and forced her to seek refuge in India, straining ties between New Delhi and Dhaka. Bangladesh, first under the interim administration led by Muhammad Yunus and now under the BNP government headed by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, has repeatedly asked India to extradite her. India’s Ministry of External Affairs has said Bangladesh’s extradition request is under examination as part of legal and judicial processes.
Hasina said she wanted to surrender because she believed the court proceedings would expose what she called the “farcical” nature of the cases against her. “I believe in justice, and I feel that once proceedings start, it will be clear to the people how farcical the court is — and that I want to prove it,” she told Reuters. Her claim of politically motivated prosecution comes amid controversy over several cases filed after her fall from power.
Hasina declined to give an exact date for her return or specify which court she would surrender before. She said she was not worried about imprisonment, noting that she had been jailed multiple times in the past, including during Bangladesh’s military-backed caretaker government in 2007 before returning to power after the 2008 elections.
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