HC scraps Khaleda Zia’s bail plea in graft case

BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia. Prothom Alo File Photo
BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia. Prothom Alo File Photo

The High Court on Wednesday scrapped a plea of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia for bail in Zia Charitable Trust graft case, reports BSS.

An HC division bench comprising justice Obaidul Hassan and justice SM Kuddus Zaman passed the order after holding hearing on the plea for second consecutive day.

Dhaka Special Judge Court-5 on 29 October 2018, sentenced the BNP chief and three others to seven-year imprisonment and fined them one million taka each, in default, six more months in jail, in the case.

Khaleda Zia on 18 November 2019, filed an appeal against her conviction.

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed the case with capital’s Tejgaon police station on 8 August 2010, for embezzling Tk 31.5 million while police on 16 January 2012, filed charge sheet against four including the ex-prime minister.

The other three convicts are Khaleda’s former political secretary Haris Chowdhury, the then BIWTA director Ziaul Islam Munna and former Dhaka city mayor Sadek Hossain Khoka’s personal secretary Monirul Islam Khan.

Khaleda is now behind the bar after being convicted in Zia Orphanage Trust graft case on 8 February 2018.

She was sentenced to five-year imprisonment, which later enhanced to 10 by the Supreme Court.