Awami League Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif has been sentenced to death for his role in the killing of six people in Kushtia during the July 2024 mass uprising.
Delivering the verdict on Thursday, the International Crimes Tribunal-2 (ICT-2) also handed down sentences of imprisonment until death to three co-accused: Kushtia district Awami League President Sadar Uddin Khan, General Secretary Azgar Ali, and Kushtia city unit General Secretary Ataur Rahman Ata.
All four convicts were tried in absentia as they remain absconding from justice.
They were represented throughout proceedings by state-appointed defence counsel.
The three-member tribunal bench, chaired by Justice Nazrul Islam Chowdhury alongside Judges Manjurul Bashid and Noor Mohammad Shahriar Kabir, ordered the immediate confiscation of half of the convicts’ immovable properties.
The tribunal directed that the seized assets be disbursed through the July Foundation or an equivalent official mechanism to compensate the families of the deceased and those injured during the uprising.
The prosecution formally pressed three counts of crimes against humanity against the accused, backed by testimonies from 19 witnesses, including the chief investigating officer.
The first charge centred on the accused attending a high-level meeting where Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader declared that the Chhatra League alone was sufficient to crush the July movement, a stance endorsed by the convicts.
The second charge involved conspiring and issuing direct execution orders during a party meeting in Kushtia on 29 July 2024. The third charge related directly to the planning and execution that left six anti-government protesters dead and scores wounded across Kushtia.
Central to the prosecution’s case was a speech delivered on 27 July 2024 outside the Kushtia district Awami League office by convict Azgar Ali. In the address, Ali publicly disclosed that Hanif had instructed party loyalists to suppress the student-led movement “by any means necessary.” Prosecutors argued that these operational commands directly incited the fatal violence that followed.
Lead Prosecutor Gazi MH Tamim presented closing arguments on 5 October 2025, followed by state-appointed defence lawyer Amir Hossain on 7 October, after which the tribunal reserved its judgment.
The court had previously reserved its verdict in June, but reopened proceedings to admit additional prosecution evidence before concluding the trial.
The judgment has brought a wave of relief and satisfaction across Kushtia, where residents had long suffered political repression, abuse of power, and systemic violence under local party rule.
Community leaders and families of the victims in Kushtia welcomed Thursday’s verdict as a momentous victory for justice, whilst calling on law enforcement agencies to track down and arrest the fugitive convicts.
Seema, whose father Yusuf Sheikh was killed in Kushtia on 5 August 2024, expressed grim satisfaction with the ruling but urged the government to ensure the swift arrest of the perpetrators.
Relatives of victims and key witnesses also petitioned the authorities for heightened security, citing lingering threats of retaliation from underground political networks.
