Bangladesh suspends opposition leader’s sentence for six more months
Khaleda Zia
The government on Thursday suspended opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia’s sentences in two cases for six more months.
‘Her sentences have been suspended for six more months from September 25 on the previous condition that she would take treatment from home and would not go abroad,’ law minister Anisul Huq told New Age.
BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said, ‘I shall not make any comment on this matter as this is a decision of the family of Khaleda Zia. The party has made no formal decision on the matter.’
Khaleda Zia’s family had submitted an appeal to the government recently for her permanent release as the suspension of her conviction was set to expire on September 24.
Khaleda’s youngest brother Shamim Iskander submitted the appeal to the home ministry on behalf of the family.
On March 25, the government released the ailing BNP chief for six months suspending her sentences for six months on humanitarian ground considering her old age.
She was released from the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital.
Since then, she has been staying at her Gulshan house in the capital. She is now 75.
BNP leaders, on several occasions after Khaleda’s release on March 25, said that she needed advanced treatment abroad.
A lawyer of Khaleda’s defence team said that she was now facing 37 cases, 33 of which were filed by the Awami League government.
She was granted interim bails in all but two cases related to Zia Orphanage Trust and Zia Charitable Trust.
Her family first submitted application to the government in March for her release after the High Court on February 28, 2020 once again rejected her bail petition in the Zia Charitable Trust Case.
On December 12, 2019, the Appellate Division upheld the High Court order that rejected her bail on July 31, 2019.
She prayed for the bail to facilitate her ‘advanced treatment’ in the United Kingdom for her chronic arthritis as prescribed by the medical board formed by the BSMMU.
Her lawyers said that there had been no improvement of her health condition since she was shifted to the BSMMU on April 1, 2018.
On February 18, 2020, Khaleda filed a fresh petition for bail amid conflicting political statements by leaders of the ruling Awami League and the opposition BNP over her release.
Khaleda had been in jail since February 8, 2018, when she was sentenced by a special judge’s court in Dhaka in a graft case which the BNP terms false and fabricated.
She was taken to the Old Dhaka Central Jail on Nazimuddin Road in the capital, from where she was shifted to BSMMU on April 1, 2019 and had been undergoing treatment there until her release.
On February 8, 2018, a special judge’s court in Dhaka jailed Khaleda for five years in the Zia Orphanage Trust Case but the High Court on the Anti-Corruption Commission’s appeal doubled the sentence to 10 years.
On October 29, 2018, the same special judge’s court jailed her for seven years in Zia Charitable Trust Case filed by the commission government in 2011.
Her appeals against the sentences are now pending with the Supreme Court.
New Age
