Khaleda Zia’s son gets 7-year imprisonment
DHAKA: A Bangladesh court on Thursday convicted the exiled eldest son of the main opposition leader for money laundering and sentenced him to seven years in prison, a move that could end his political ambitions.
Two high court judges overturned a 2013 acquittal by a lower court of 51-year-old Tarique Rahman, who lives in exile in London and now faces a ban from politics.
Rahman, who was also fined 200 million taka ($2.5 million), is the eldest son of opposition leader and two-time former prime minister Khaleda Zia and was considered her political heir apparent.
“The high court said Tarique Rahman influenced political power to help his close friend Giasuddin Mamun to get and then launder 200 million taka,” deputy attorney general Moniruzzaman Kabir said.
The move comes at a volatile time in Bangladesh, which is reeling from a wave of deadly attacks by extremists.
The Bangladeshi government says those attacks and a number of other killings of secular writers, foreigners and religious minorities are part of a plot to destabilise the country.
It has blamed 70-year-old Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its hardline ally.
The BNP protested the money laundering verdict, saying it was part of the government’s “political vengeance” against Rahman.
“The lower court did not find any evidence against Tarique Rahman. The judge who gave that verdict was forced to flee the country following government pressure,” BNP spokesman Rizvi Ahmed said.
“These are all parts of a conspiracy to keep him out of politics and to destroy the Zia family,” he said. The judge who acquitted Rahman in 2013 has since fled the country and is believed to be in Malaysia.