Dhaka, Nov. 18 -- Bangladesh's political theatre has entered a new and perilous act.

The International Crimes Tribunal that Sheikh Hasina herself created to try the crimes against humanity of 1971 has now sentenced the former prime minister to death for the same offence, following her overthrow in the July Uprising.

Forced from office by a fierce mass movement and fleeing to India after the fall of her government, she now carries a sentence that has pushed her party, the Awami League, to the brink of its gravest crisis in 50 years.

After the 1975 assassination of her father, independence architect Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and the killing of most of her family, the Awami League splintered but was never formally banned.

This t...