Ousted Bangladeshi ex-Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, said that she and the top leaders of the now-banned Awami League plan to come back from exile in India around December.
In a first interview since exile on Friday, Hasina said they are willing to submit to a Bangladeshi court, though they are charged with death sentence during their two-year stay in India.
Sheikh Hasina, 78, has not discussed with any foreign government when she will return, she said in the nearly-hour-long Reuters telephone interview.
The announcement is the first time that she has publicly declared a schedule for repatriation and confirmed plans to take part in a collective surrender with party colleagues.
“They may arrest me on my return, they may even kill me,” Hasina told Reuters. “Still, I have to go. My party leaders and workers are being subjected to tremendous repression. If death comes, I want it to come on my own soil, where my parents are buried and where their blood was shed.”
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In November, Hasina was sentenced to death by Bangladesh’s war crimes tribunal for allegedly ordering a massacre of student protesters.
She has dismissed the charges from exile. As many as 1,400 people were killed during the crackdown, according to a United Nations report.
Hasina presented the surrender as a strategic challenge to the legitimacy of the judicial proceedings, rather than as a capitulation.
“I believe in justice and I feel that once proceedings start, it will be clear to the people how farcical the court is,” she said. She did not revealed the court where she would be appearing, or the exact date she would return.
Calling upon exiled Awami League figures to join her, Hasina stated: “Cases have been filed against almost all of our leaders and workers, and many of them are in hiding. So I said that this time I am returning home, and one day, all of you should come. Altogether, we will all surrender in court.”
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Among the people to be present with her is Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, who is also under death sentence.
The present rulers of Dhaka have shown no sense of reconciliation. Speaking at an event on July 4 on the second anniversary of the uprising, Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed said Hasina had “no remorse” for the “mass murder and genocide” that the government alleges were carried out.
Hasina’s voluntary return may help defuse the immense bilateral tension between Dhaka and New Delhi which broke out in the aftermath of India granting her asylum.
Bangladesh had applied for her extradition on multiple occasions, while India has stated that the demand is currently being subjected to a legal examination.
On the banning of the Awami League from electoral participation, Hasina said: “They may have convicted me, and I may not be able to contest elections. But why should they suspend the Awami League? If we have done badly, let the people decide.”
