Khaleda gets 7 yrs in fresh graft case
Dhaka, Oct. 29: Bangladesh’s ailing former prime minister Khaleda Zia suffered a major setback on Monday when a court here jailed her to seven years in a second corruption case for embezzling millions from a charitable trust in her late husband’s name, ahead of general elections.
Zia, 73, is already behind bars after being handed a five- year term in February in another case related to embezzlement of funds of an orphanage named after her husband late president Ziaur Rahman.
The latest sentence, which comes ahead of general elections in December, is related the Zia Charitable Trust.
Dhaka, Oct. 29: Bangladesh’s ailing former PM Khaleda Zia suffered a major setback on Monday when a court here jailed her to seven years in a second corruption case for embezzling millions from a charitable trust in her late husband’s name, ahead of general elections.
Zia, 73, is already behind bars after being handed a five- year term in February in another case related to embezzlement of funds of an orphanage named after her late husband Ziaur Rahman.
The latest sentence, which comes ahead of elections in December, is related the Zia Charitable Trust. According to the case, Zia and three others abused their power and collected $ 375,000 for the trust from unknown sources.
Judge Mohammad Akhtaruzzaman announced the verdict from the temporary premises of the court at the old central prison at Dhaka's Nazimuddin Road.
The final trial proceedings in the case went ahead in the absence of Zia, the leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party ( BNP), after the prison authorities repeatedly failed to bring her to the court. She had recently complained to the court that she was losing feeling in her hand and in a leg.
The Zia Charitable Trust graft case was filed by the Anti- Corruption Commission in 2011.
Zia's former political affairs secretary Harris Chowdhury, his former aide and former Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority acting director Ziaul Islam Munna and former Dhaka mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka's personal secretary Monirul Islam Khan are the three others convicted in the case.