Photo: Collected
The High Court today (27 November) ordered the acquittal of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, scrapping her seven-year sentence in a corruption case over the Zia Charitable Trust. A high court bench of Justice AKM Asaduzzaman and Justice Syed Enayet Hossain passed the order after accepting an appeal by Khaleda's lawyers against a sentence by the lower court.
Earlier on 20 November, the High Court began hearing Khaleda Zia's appeal. In October 2018, Khaleda Zia was convicted in the Zia Charitable Trust corruption case and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment by a special court during Sheikh Hasina's regime.
On 3 November, the High Court allowed Khaleda to begin preparations for paper books in an appeal against a lower court's ruling that sentenced her to seven years in prison in the corruption case.
On 16 August, the former prime minister, who has been out of jail for years on an executive order and its extensions, was declared completely free after President Mohammed Shahabuddin commuted her prison terms.
Even though the BNP chairperson has been freed, she will not be able to participate in the elections within the next five years. In February 2018, she landed in jail being sentenced to five years' imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust case.
She was then disqualified from contesting the December 2018 parliamentary election in which her party joined. The two trusts were set up when she was the prime minister -- the orphanage trust during her 1991-1996 rule and the other in 2001-2006. Both were named after her late husband and former president Ziaur Rahman, also the founding chairman of the BNP.
The BNP chief, who had been fighting legal battles over the months to come out of jail, was granted bail in the orphanage case. But she could not secure bail in all the three dozen cases she was facing.
In this case, the Special Judge Court-5 found her guilty of abusing power as the prime minister during her second term to collect and spend Tk6.52 crore for different purposes, including purchase of 42 kathas of land in the capital for setting up Zia Charitable Trust.
The court sentenced Khaleda as the prime accused and three others on charges of abetting her to commit the offence. The court also asked the authorities concerned to confiscate the 42 kathas of land in favour of the government.
Messenger/JRTarek
