Ex-leader Hasina gambles on return to Bangladesh despite death penalty

Former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina has vowed to return to her country in December, despite facing the death penalty there for crimes against humanity.

Hasina, who denies the charges, was tried in absentia after fleeing to India during an anti-government uprising in 2024.

On the second anniversary of being ousted, Hasina said in an audio broadcast to a crowded press club in Delhi that she "had to go back", but wouldn't announce her exact plans or dates yet.

Her Awami League party has been falling apart and Indian officials have been facing pressure to extradite her after a special tribunal in Dhaka sentenced her to death last year for ordering lethal force to be used on protesters.

Hasina's virtual meeting with reporters at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Delhi was her first meeting with the media since she was toppled after 15 years in power.

She delivered a speech over an audio link and then took a handful of questions.

"I know that they may put me in jail or they may kill me, anything may happen, but still I have to go back," she said.

In the address she alleged that several organisations had turned the 2024 student protests into a "violent movement", without providing any evidence.