Bangladesh's student protest leader Nahid Islam appeared on Thursday as the final prosecution witness in the crimes against humanity trial of fugitive ex-premier Sheikh Hasina.
Hasina, 77, has defied court orders to return from India, where she fled last year, to face charges of ordering a deadly crackdown in a failed attempt to crush a student-led uprising.
Up to 1,400 people were killed between July and August 2024, according to the United Nations.
Prosecutors have filed five charges against Hasina, including failure to prevent mass murder, which amount to crimes against humanity under Bangladeshi law.
"Sheikh Hasina is responsible for all the atrocities," Nahid, 27, told the court.
He said Hasina relied on the armed forces' intelligence wing, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), and police units to suppress the protest.
Nahid recounted how DGFI officers urged him on July 17, 2024, to call off the protests.
"We turned down the request," he said. "The next day became the deadliest of the entire movement."
He described being arrested along with other key leaders, blindfolded, and handcuffed.
He said interrogators threatened him: "If we wanted the other coordinators back alive... we had to withdraw from the movement."
Hasina is being tried in absentia alongside two former senior officials.
Her ex-interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal is also a fugitive, while former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun is in custody and has pleaded guilty.
They face a possible death sentence if convicted.
All three were members of the now-banned Awami League, Hasina's party, which says they "categorically deny the charges".
Hasina has a state-appointed lawyer but refuses to recognise the court's authority.
The trial now moves into its final stages, with the interim government aiming to steer the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million towards elections in February.
