Bangla court gives Khaleda Zia 5 years in jail
A Bangladesh judge convicted opposition leader Khaleda Zia of corruption and sentenced her to five years in jail on Thursday as police clashed with thousands of her supporters outside the court.
The court found the two-time former premier guilty of embezzling money meant for an orphanage, a charge she had consistently dismissed as politically motivated.
Zia, leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), is expected to appeal against the verdict, but it may affect her ability to stand in a general election slated for December.
“This is a false and staged case. No way we will accept this verdict,” BNP secretary general Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told AFP after the hearing.
Zia’s lawyer Khandkar Mahbub Hossain said the ruling was “political vengeance” and would be overturned by a higher court.
Ahead of the hearing police fired tear gas at thousands of opposition activists who defied heavy security to escort the car taking Zia to the magistrates court.
The private television station Somoy said at least five police officers had been injured and two motorcycles torched during the clashes that broke out several kilometres (miles) from the court premises.
Zia, 72, is a former ally turned arch-foe of Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Her party boycotted 2014 polls in which Hasina was re-elected but is expected to contest the upcoming general election.
Zia, who entered politics in the mid-1980s after her military dictator husband was assassinated in an abortive coup, also faces dozens of separate charges of violence and corruption.
Zia and her son Rahman were detained by an army-backed government in 2007 and spent a year and a half in detention pending trials for alleged corruption.
“This is an attempt to use the court against me, in an effort to sideline me from politics and elections and to isolate me from the people,” she told a packed news conference on Wednesday.
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