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.”

BANGLADESH-INDIA TIES STRAINED BY EXILE

Hasina fled Bangladesh in ​2024 after protests ended her 20 years as prime minister across multiple terms. The country’s war-crimes court sentenced her in November to death in her absence for ordering a deadly crackdown on a ​student-led uprising. She has denied the charges from exile.

A return could sharpen political divisions in the garment-export powerhouse as the government in Dhaka seeks to restore stability ⁠after two years of upheaval. On the other hand, it could improve strained ties with India, which deteriorated sharply after New Delhi gave her refuge.

Bangladesh has repeatedly urged India to extradite her.

Hasina, who has fielded written ​questions from news outlets but not previously given an interview during her exile, said she has not consulted with any foreign government on whether or when to return.

This is the first time she has set out a timetable ​for her return, said she plans to surrender or said other exiled Awami League leaders would do so. Among them, former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal also faces a death sentence. Reuters could not contact the other party members or establish where they were.

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.”

Spokespeople for the Bangladesh government did not respond to requests for comment on Hasina’s remarks.

India’s foreign ​ministry did not respond to a request for comment. In April, the ministry said it was examining Bangladesh’s request to extradite her and that it wanted to “engage constructively with the new government and further strengthen bilateral ties”.

ONETIME ​DEMOCRACY CHAMPION ACCUSED OF CRUSHING DISSENT

Hasina was a dominant figure in Bangladesh for half a century after being thrust into the spotlight by the assassination of her father, an independence leader, and much of her family in a military coup.

She ‌fought for democracy ⁠early on and was credited with turning around the economy of the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million, but her long rule generated accusations that her government had crushed dissent and dismantled democratic checks and balances — allegations she denies.

The crackdown that led to her downfall killed as many as 1,400 people, according to a U.N. report.

“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.”

‘LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE,’ HASINA SAYS

Many Awami League workers have faced arrest, legal cases and physical attacks since her government was toppled, according to media reports and government officials.

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.

After returning from exile in 1981 following her father’s assassination, she was detained repeatedly during campaigns against military rule. She was jailed again in 2007 by a military-backed caretaker government on corruption charges before being freed and winning elections in 2008.

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

“When a government works for a long ⁠time, mistakes can ​happen — no government is above error,” she said. “But the right to judge the good and bad, the right and wrong of a ​government belongs to the people. I leave that judgment to the people.”

Hasina said she has held online meetings covering 125 of Bangladesh’s 300 parliamentary constituencies as part of efforts to reorganise the Awami League.

“They may have convicted me, and I may not be able to ​contest elections,” she said. “But why should they suspend the Awami League? If we have done badly, let the people decide.”

Iran’s slain Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was buried at the country’s holiest shrine, state media reported early on Friday, after huge crowds gathered for his funeral while his son and designated successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, remained out of public view.

The burial in the northeastern city of Mashhad followed a week of funeral processions, rallies and mourning ceremonies, coinciding with renewed tensions between Iran and the United States after weeks of truce in the four-month war.

Khamenei was killed in the opening strikes of the war launched by the United States and Israel on Feb. 28. Washington and Tehran agreed to a ceasefire last month.

His body was carried by truck through packed streets in Mashhad on Thursday toward the Shrine of Imam Reza, as white-turbaned clerics walked alongside the procession. Black-clad mourners followed, waving Iranian flags, portraits of Khamenei and red placards bearing revolutionary slogans.

The burial marked the culmination of a week of funeral ceremonies in Iran and Iraq that the Islamic Republic’s clerical leadership encouraged large crowds to attend in an effort to demonstrate the strength and ideological resolve of the country’s theocratic system.

Despite surviving months of war with the United States and Israel, Iran continues to face significant internal political and economic challenges, while the legacy of Khamenei’s 37-year rule remains deeply contested.

The U.S. military said on Wednesday it launched fresh strikes on Iran to keep the Strait of ‌Hormuz open to shipping, triggering Iranian attacks on Kuwait and Bahrain in the latest escalation to derail efforts to end the war.

The latest round of attacks, which the U.S. said was carried out in response to Tuesday’s assault on three cargo ships transiting the strait, came hours after President Donald Trump said he believed an interim ceasefire with Iran to be “over,” Reuters reported.

“U.S. Central Command forces have started conducting additional strikes against Iran to further degrade their ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz,” CENTCOM, the U.S. military’s Middle East ​command, wrote on X.

“The United States is holding Iran accountable for recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping and civilian crews freely navigating a vital international waterway.”

The U.S. strikes rattled several cities along Iran’s southern coast ​and left some areas without power. Iran responded with a second day of attacks on Kuwait and Bahrain, both home to U.S. military bases.

Kuwait’s Defense Ministry said it ⁠was intercepting missiles and drones, while Qatar briefly issued an “elevated security threat” alert before later giving the all-clear.

The U.S. strikes against Iran on Wednesday will be greater in number than the ones carried out on Tuesday, a U.S. official ​told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Control of the strait, through which a ​fifth of global oil supplies passed before the war, has given Tehran immense leverage, effectively allowing it to force a stalemate with the world’s most powerful military. While Iran has not claimed responsibility for the ship attacks, analysts say Tehran uses such actions to gain leverage in negotiations.

“The U.S. has yet to learn that bullying and breaking its commitments no longer come without a cost. Let me be clear: If you strike, you will be struck back,” Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, wrote on X.

“The Strait of ​Hormuz will be reopened only under Iranian arrangements, not through U.S. threats.”

The latest exchange of strikes appeared to dim hopes of turning a memorandum of understanding signed on June 17 into a permanent deal to end the war, which began with ​U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28.

Asked before a NATO summit in Turkey on Wednesday whether the memorandum of understanding was over, Trump said: “It’s a very interesting question. To me, I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them.”

“If we ‌make a ⁠deal with Iran I’m not sure that will stick,” Trump later said. “I found them to be very dishonourable people.”

But Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to escalate military action before backing off, said he did not expect a return to full-fledged war, and that it was not clear whether the negotiations on reaching a permanent deal would continue.

Also on Wednesday, Trump said he did not think the war would restart: “Anything that happens is going to be over very quickly … and will only make it safer, including for oil.”

Wednesday’s attacks pushed oil prices higher, with Brent crude futures rising about 1% to $78.80 a barrel by 0054 GMT. Even so, prices remained well below the late-April peak of more than $120 a barrel.

MAJOR IRAN PORT CITY ​HIT BY STRIKES

Iranian media reported strikes primarily along Iran’s ​southern coast, from the Strait of Hormuz to the ⁠Gulf of Oman.

Among the locations hit were Bandar Abbas, home to Iran’s largest port and key navy and Revolutionary Guards facilities on the Strait of Hormuz, as well as Konarak and Chabahar, neighbouring coastal cities near Iran’s border with Pakistan.

Electricity had been restored to most areas of Chabahar after strikes knocked out power for some in the ​city, Mehr news agency reported, citing the local utility. Media also reported that a maritime traffic control tower in Chabahar was hit.

A firefighter was killed in a ​strike on the airport in the ⁠southeastern city of Iranshahr, state media reported. In northern Iran, a U.S. attack hit a railway bridge near the town of Aqqala, according to Press TV.

Prior to the fresh U.S. attacks on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei had said U.S. strikes had violated the memorandum by challenging a clause that “emphasizes the Islamic Republic of Iran’s responsibility in determining arrangements for the safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz”.

A spokesperson for parliament’s National Security Commission had said options for ⁠retaliation included withdrawing ​from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), changing Iran’s nuclear doctrine, and closing the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait at the mouth of the Red Sea, another crucial ​global shipping route.

In a letter to the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, Iran’s mission to the U.N. accused the United States of “blatant violation of the Charter of the United Nations and its international obligations” and said its attacks violated the memorandum of understanding signed by the ​two countries.