Bangladesh ex-PM plans December return

Hasina says she will face death on own soil

DELHI:

Ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, facing a death sentence back home where her party is banned, told Reuters she and senior party colleagues plan to return from exile in India around December and surrender.

The South Asian nation's longest-serving leader said she and members of her Awami League aim to return voluntarily to the country they fled two years ago and present themselves in court, testing Bangladesh's handling of its most prominent political opponent.

"They may arrest me on my return, they may even kill me," Hasina, 78, said in the nearly hour-long telephone interview late on Thursday and into Friday. "Still, I have to go," she said.

"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."

The authorities in Dhaka "want to take me back, they are repeatedly sending letters to India seeking to have me sent back", she said. "I will go myself."

"Cases have been filed against almost all of our leaders and workers, and many of them are in hiding," Hasina told Reuters from her exile home in Delhi. "So I said that this time I am returning home, and one day, all of you should come. All together, we will all surrender in court."

She declined to give a date for her return or say exactly when she would surrender or to what court. "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."

Hasina said she had not been in touch with Dhaka over her plans to return. "Democracy, voting rights, the political rights of the Awami League and justice are not subjects for secret talks."

She said she was not worried about jail time, noting that she had been arrested several times before.

Leading her to flee this time, she said, were threats on her life as crowds advanced towards her residence.