Bangladesh court detains 70 lawyers tied to toppled government

A Bangladesh court ordered at least 70 lawyers linked to the former government to be held in custody on Sunday for the attempted murder of fellow lawyers during last year’s revolution.

All of the detained lawyers are senior advocates and belonged to the Awami League party of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was toppled from power by the student-led uprising in August 2024.

“The defendants were accused of attempted murder and assault,” Khorshed Alam, a lawyer representing a private individual who brought the case, told Prothom Alo, a Bengali daily newspaper.

He said he had “never seen such an incident of assaulting fellow lawyers in the court premises”, or as many lawyers taken into custody at once.

Alam also said the court in the capital Dhaka had granted bail to one of the lawyers, the former president of the bar association, as well as nine women lawyers.

Lutfor Rahman, representing at least 10 of the accused, said his clients had been on bail for eight weeks and had appeared before the court to seek an extension.