BANGLADESH HC CLEARS ways FOR ZIA'S TRIAL IN ABSENTIA IN GRAFT CASE

DHAKA: A Bangladesh high court on Sunday allowed the lower court to continue with the trial proceedings in the graft case against former prime minister Khaleda Zia, who is undergoing treatment at a state-run hospital.

Zia, 73, whose BNP is the main opposition outside parliament, is by serving a five year jail term after being convicted in a case of embezzlement of funds of an orphanage named after her husband president Ziaur Rahman in February.

"The High Court order meant there is no legal bar for the proceedings to continue in the trial against Begum Khaleda Zia in the concerned court," lawyer for the Anticorruption Commission (ACC) Khurshid Alam Khan told reporters after a two-member high court bench dismissed a petition filed by Zia's counsels to stop the trial in absentia.

A special judge's court trying the case on September 20 ruled that the proceedings would continue despite Zia's absence as she refused to appear from the prison, but her lawyers filed the petition challenging the decision.

The former premier is being tried in another graft case, also involving a charity, called the Zia Charitable Trust.

The BNP alleged that trials were politically motivated to debar her from contesting elections, to be held by the end of the year, an allegation denied by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina-led the Awami League government.

She was admitted to the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University hospital on October 6 following a high court order. Zia is admitted at a VIP cabin of the hospital where the authorities have also allocated her an adjacent extra room.