A court in Bangladesh on Monday sentenced former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to death, convicting her of ordering a deadly crackdown on a student uprising last year.

The International Crimes Tribunal, a domestic war crimes court based in the capital, Dhaka, delivered the verdict amid tight security and in the absence of Hasina, who fled to India in August 2024 at the height of the revolt against her government.

In her first comments on the verdict, Hasina described it as coming from a “kangaroo court established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate.”

“They are biased and politically-motivated,” she said in a statement emailed to the media. “In their odious call for the death penalty, they reveal the brazen and bloodthirsty intention of extremist figures within the interim government to depose Bangladesh’s last elected Prime Minister and to nullify the Awami League’s role as a political force.”

Following the verdict, Dhaka said on Monday it had asked India to extradite Hasina and her former interior minister, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, who was also sentenced to death. Dhaka stated that India was “bound to do so under an extradition treaty.”