Ousted Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said she fled the country on August 5 last year “out of necessity”. She claimed that remaining in Bangladesh, which was battling widespread protests against Hasina, would have endangered her life and the “safety of those around her”.“Staying would not only have put my life in danger, but also the lives of those around me,” she said, speaking in an exclusive interview with The Independent.

Despite fleeing the country and the Awami League being banned in Bangladesh, she maintains that she is still committed to “restoring democracy” in the country.

‘Violent insurrection’

Hasina described the August protests in Bangladesh as a “violent insurrection.”“As a leader, I ultimately take leadership responsibility, but the claim that I ordered or wished for the security forces to open fire on the crowds is simply wrong,” she said.She added that she blames the high number of casualties on “breakdowns in discipline among security forces on the ground.” Hasina said her government had launched an independent inquiry into the initial killings, which was later shut down by the interim administration that replaced her.She said that she would “neither be surprised nor intimidated” if Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) sentenced her to death, calling the proceedings “a sham trial” motivated by political revenge.“The ICT is a sham court presided over by an unelected government consisting of my political opponents. Many of those opponents will stop at nothing to get rid of me,” Hasina said, as cited by The Independent.

‘Principal architect’: Interim govt targets Hasina

What began last July as a movement by university students demanding the removal of job quotas for relatives of independence war veterans soon grew into a nationwide uprising in Bangladesh, which ultimately led to Hasina fleeing the country.Hasina disputed the widely reported death toll from the student-led protests, saying that “the 1,400 figure is useful to the ICT for propaganda purposes but is probably inflated.”Meanwhile, the interim government’s chief prosecutor, Tajul Islam, has called Hasina the “mastermind and principal architect” behind the alleged crimes against humanity during the student-led uprising.