Sheikh Hasina has said she plans to return to Bangladesh by December 2026 and is prepared to face imprisonment, according to the NDTV interview transcript covered by AFV News and European Reporter. The former prime minister coupled that pledge with a rejection of the tribunal verdict against her and a call to rebuild the Awami League.
Her account, reported on September 22, set out a political commitment rather than an agreed travel plan. She did not announce a specific arrival date or confirm that Bangladesh and India had reached an understanding on her return.
Beyond her own position, Hasina discussed her family's history, previous periods of detention and the future of her party. She also argued that South Asian countries needed to work together on security and economic opportunity, warning against treating Bangladesh's challenges in isolation from its neighbours.
December pledge without an announced route home
“I have made a solemn commitment to return to my homeland by December 2026,” Hasina said in the transcript quoted by AFV News.
The interviewer asked about possible official or backchannel communication with the Bangladeshi and Indian governments, the substance of any discussions and the arrangements that might allow her to return.
Hasina acknowledged discussion and speculation around the issue, but did not say that either government had approved a plan. No security assurance, legal guarantee or negotiated journey was disclosed in her answer.
She instead described the conditions under which she wanted to go home: peacefully, lawfully and with respect for Bangladesh's sovereignty and the rule of law. She maintained that citizenship gave her a right to return and argued that no law could fairly exclude her from her own country.
That argument expressed her position on returning; it did not settle the legal consequences she might face. The interview left open how her stated right to go home would interact with the sentence against her.
Hasina also rejected the suggestion that she had abandoned Bangladesh. She attributed her departure to circumstances beyond her control and connected her wish to return with what she described as decades of work for development and economic wellbeing.
Her answers therefore made the December objective explicit while leaving its implementation unresolved. Neither a precise itinerary nor a confirmed government-to-government arrangement emerged from the account.
Readiness for prison alongside rejection of the verdict
Asked about arrest or imprisonment on arrival in Dhaka, Hasina said she would accept the risk of legal consequences to carry on her political work and serve Bangladesh's people.
She did not, however, accept the findings of the proceedings that produced her death sentence. She dismissed the process and verdict as politically motivated and unjust, while accusing the administration formed after her departure of unconstitutional conduct and revenge.
Those accusations were hers. The reported interview did not contain a response from the tribunal or Bangladeshi authorities to the allegations. Her statement that she was prepared for prison was not an admission that the tribunal's conclusions were correct.
Hasina called for her rights to be protected and for the law to be applied fairly throughout any judicial process. She said threats and fear would not drive her out of politics, presenting her intended return as part of a commitment to democracy, justice and public welfare.
Legal background: A UN human rights office statement dated November 17, 2025, reproduced by ecoi.net, addressed the verdicts against Hasina and a former home minister on crimes-against-humanity charges relating to the suppression of protests in 2024. It stressed accountability and remedies for victims as well as international standards for due process and a fair trial. The office highlighted the importance of those safeguards where defendants were tried in their absence and received capital sentences. It said it had not been privy to the trial's conduct and reiterated its opposition to the death penalty in all circumstances. This is historical background, not a UN reaction to the reported interview.
Family history shapes her argument about justice
To explain her insistence on a fair hearing, Hasina recalled the assassination of her father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and the killings of other relatives on August 15, 1975.
She described 18 family members as having been killed, including her mother, three brothers, two sisters-in-law, an uncle and other relatives. In her account, she and her sister were in Germany at the time and she could not return to Bangladesh for six years.
Hasina recalled that the Awami League elected her president while she was abroad, before she returned in 1981. She said she later began the prosecution of her father's killers after taking power in 1996, following years in which an indemnity arrangement had prevented a trial.
She attributed that protection to the military-era leadership of Ziaur Rahman. Describing the case as a legal process pursued under Bangladeshi law, she said more than three decades separated the killings from a final verdict and that the proceedings themselves lasted more than 13 years.
Hasina used this history to distinguish her professed confidence in the country's justice system from her rejection of the specific case against her. She argued that the principle of fair treatment should apply to her just as it should to others.
These details were presented as her recollections in the interview account, rather than as newly established findings. They explained the personal history behind her legal argument without resolving the merits of the current proceedings.
Reconnecting the Awami League with its supporters
Hasina's plans for the Awami League formed another substantial part of the discussion. The interviewer asked how the party could be revived while barred from active politics and whether she would personally lead its rebuilding as an opposition force.
She said efforts were already under way to strengthen its organisation and restore connections with supporters and party workers across Bangladesh. Her answer pointed to an ongoing leadership role for herself, not a decision to step away from political life.
She described the Awami League, founded in 1949, as the organisation that led Bangladesh to independence and stood for its democratic aspirations. That was her characterisation of the party's history and purpose.
The legacy of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was central to her account as well. She called for recognition of her father's contribution and linked the party's future to democratic governance, citizens' rights and the dignity of Bangladesh's people.
The organisational ambition was more developed than the practical roadmap she disclosed. Hasina did not provide an electoral strategy, a timetable for restoring the party's public role or a specific legal process through which restrictions would be overturned.
Her comments established that she wanted to rebuild the organisation and reconnect with its base. They did not establish when, or under what conditions, the party would be able to resume political participation.
Past detention invoked to explain her resolve
Hasina drew a connection between her willingness to risk imprisonment now and earlier periods of detention in her life.
She recalled being detained with her mother during the 1971 independence struggle after her father's arrest. She said she had been pregnant with her first child and that her son was born while she was in captivity.
Discussing the years following her return in 1981, she portrayed her political activity as a campaign against military rule and for democratic rights. She referred to repeated arrests during the 1980s, in 1990 and again in 2007.
In her telling, those experiences had not ended her political involvement. She cited them to argue that difficult conditions and the prospect of detention would not, by themselves, make her abandon the Awami League or her intention to go home.
The recollections supplied the background to her stated determination. They were not an announcement of an agreement on how a new detention or legal process would be handled.
Security proposals include protection of civil liberties
On the possibility of extremist and terrorist networks gaining influence in Bangladesh, Hasina said the threat was serious and should not be underestimated.
She defended her government's approach, saying it had made preventing Bangladesh from becoming a haven for such networks a priority. Looking ahead, she advocated stronger intelligence capabilities, more effective law enforcement and community engagement aimed at countering radicalisation.
She also said that security measures had to be balanced with civil liberties. Her remarks linked domestic peace and stability with conditions across the wider region rather than presenting security as a purely national concern.
The account did not identify a particular militant network, a newly disclosed incident or a detailed intelligence finding behind her warning. It set out her assessment of the danger and her preferred response, not an independently established intelligence conclusion.
The interviewer raised a comparison with Pakistan and referred to closer ties between Bangladesh and Pakistan. Hasina did not directly embrace that comparison in her reply. She emphasised instead that extremist organisations and ideologies could operate across borders.
Regional integration rather than Bangladesh's isolation
Hasina argued that separating Bangladesh from its South Asian neighbours would not offer a practical or productive answer to extremism. In her view, the problem had regional and international dimensions that made cooperation necessary.
Her argument went beyond intelligence and policing. She pointed to a young population with increasing connections to the wider world and expectations of better governance and economic opportunity. Those expectations, she said, reflected a broader transformation in society.
She contrasted a region divided by repression, nationalism, geopolitical rivalry and accumulated mistrust with one pursuing closer economic integration. In the cooperative approach she described, improvements in prosperity and security could support each other rather than being treated as competing aims.
Hasina concluded by presenting peace and economic advancement as shared interests in an interdependent world. Her argument favoured sustained engagement between neighbours over isolation and antagonism.
The immediate questions about her own future nevertheless remained open. She had pledged to return by December, but had not disclosed when she would travel, how any arrangements would be secured, or how she would address the sentence and the restrictions facing the Awami League on arrival. The interview account conveyed determination; it did not reveal an agreed mechanism for carrying out the return.
Sources: This article is a separately written version of the European Reporter report and the AFV News account of a transcript identified as an NDTV telephone interview. It does not independently authenticate the recording or broadcast date. Hasina's recollections, allegations and political assessments remain attributed to her. The UN statement is separate legal background. The credited photograph is from October 2023, not the reported interview.