Bangladesh Tribunal Condemns Ex-PM Hasina to Death, Dhaka Seeks Extradition from India

South Asia has seen deposed leaders tried and condemned before—Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s 1979 death sentence under General Zia still shadows Pakistan’s politics—but few cases have relied on a neighbour’s extradition choice. The episode underscores a century-long regional pattern: incumbents weaponising special tribunals to eliminate rivals while external powers weigh realpolitik against legal ideals. Bangladesh’s interim regime is using the very war-crimes court Hasina created in 2010, echoing revolutions that devoured their architects in France (1794) and Cambodia (1979). India now faces a test reminiscent of its 1956 refusal to hand over Hungarian refugees to Moscow: whether to prioritise treaty obligations or political stability on its border. How New Delhi decides will shape norms on cross-border asylum, the death penalty, and politicised justice across the subcontinent for decades; on a 100-year horizon it may mark either the entrenchment of tit-for-tat judicial reprisals or a precedent for insulating regional politics from vengeance cycles.