Bangladesh’s ousted leader Hasina plans December return with party colleagues to surrender

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 nations 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,” Ms. Hasina, 78, said in the nearly hour-long telephone interview late on Thursday (July 9) and into Friday (July 10).

“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.”